





V 








THE 



HORTICULTURE 



BOSTON AND VICINITY, 



MARSHALL P. WILDER 






TOLMAN & WHTTE, PRINTERS, 383 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON. 
1881. 



THE HORTICULTURE 



Boston and Vicinity, 



MARSHALL PINCKNEY WILDER, 

Pbestoent of tue Xew E>-(ii.ANn Historic GENE^\.LO(:irAL 
Society, Bokton. 



SUBSTANTIALLY THE SAME AS THE CHAPTER PREPARED FOR THE 
BOSTON MEMORIAL SERIES, VOL. IV. 



:PR,IVA.TEL,"5r r>RIIS7TEr3. 




^c<ofco/^^ 



1882 



TOLMAN & WHITE, PRINTERS, 3R'. WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON. 

1881. 








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'/^ir7i<iSi>C^ 




/> 





/^'^y(^ 



y^:^ £^V 



WITH THE RESPECTS OF 




_ Z^ ^^ 






THE HORTICULTUUE OF BOSTON AND VIClNTrY.^ 



By MARSHALL PINCKNEY WILDEE, Ph. D., 

PRESIDENT OF THE NEW ENGLAND HISTORIC GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY. 



"Hail, Horticulture! Heaven-ordainctl, 

Of every art the source, 
Which man has polished, life sustained, 

Since tiftie commenced his course. 
Where waves thy wonder-working waml, 

What splendid scenes disclose ; 
The blasted heath, the arid strand, 

Outbloom the gorgeous rose !" — Fessenden. 

Boston and its environs have been famous in history 
as the battle grounds of freedom and the home of free 
schools ; famous as the abode of high culture and good 
taste, and equally famous for elegant gardens, fine 
flowers and luscious fruits. Horticulture embraces 
within its compass not only fruits and flowers, but 
whatever pertains to ornamental culture, garden, orchard 
and landscape. The horticulture of Boston, to whose 
shrine its votaries have brought their offerings, and 
in whose temples they have worshipped for half a 
century, has— embraced not only the city but its 
surroundingjs. Horticulture seems to have been the 
counterpart of a high civilization in all ages, forming 
in its study and practice the most perfect union of the 
most useful and beautiful art that mankind has ever 
known ; and this seems to have been so appreciated by 
our own people from the earliest settlement down to 

^ Prepared for the Boston Memorial Series, Volume IV. 



4 THE nORTICULTUKE OF 

the present time. As to the fruits of this region previ- 
ous to the coming of the colonists, we know but little.* 
Suffice it to say, that whether Lief and Thorwald, the 
Scandanavians, did or did not land on our shores in 
the tenth century, as the Sagas have it, and here saw 
grapes so abundant that they gave this land the name 
ofVinland, we know that the vine was found on our 
coast by Champlain, six centuries after, and that it 
prospers through twenty-five degrees of latitude ; and, 
should the phylloxera continue its devastations in 
Europe, our continent may become literally the Vine- 
land of the world. No nation possesses such wonder- 
ful resources for the culture of fruits ; no people have 
made such rapid progress in the science of Pomology ; 
and to Boston and vicinity may be traced primarily 
the wide-spread interest in Horticulture that now per- 
vades our continent. Nor has this enterprise declined. 
Massachusetts retains her renown for her skill in horti- 
cultural science, and her interest in its advancement. 

The earliest account that we have of the fruits and 
flowers of New England is given by the pilgrims at 
Plymouth, where, in addition to Indian corn and other 
grains they also found fruits and flowers which were 
indigenous to the soil. " Here are grapes," wrote Gov. 
Edward Winslow, in 1621, "white and red, and very 
sweet and strong, also ; strawberries, gooseberries, 
raspberries ; plums of three sorts, white, black, and red, 
being almost as good as a damson ; abundance of roses, 
white, red and damask, single, but very sweet." ^ 

The first orchard of which we have any account in 
our vicinity was that of the Rev. William Blackstone 
(Blaxton), planted on the west slope of Beacon Hill,^ 

* See Dr. Asa Gray's chapter in Boston Memorial, Volume I. 

1 Young's Chronicle of the Pilgrims, p. 234. 

2 Boston Memorial, Vol. I., p. 84. 



BOSTON AND YICINITY. O 

near Charles Street, being a portion of tlie six acres 
reserved from the fifty acres which he sold to the 
inhabitants of Shawmut, and from which he removed 
in 1634 to what is now Lonsdale, Rhode Island, w4iere 
may still be seen, near his favorite resort, " Study Hill," 
remains of trees planted by him, and from which were 
disseminated apples, now nnder cultivation, by the name 
of Blackstone. The first planting of fruits by the 
colonists of Massachusetts Bay, we believe, was the 
orchard of Gov. John Endicott, of Salem, about the 
year 1628, a pear tree of which still survives and 
bears fruit at the present time. From this nursery we 
find that as late as 1648 Endicott sold 500 apple trees 
to William Trask, for which he received two hundred 
and fifty acres of land, an acre of land for two apple 
trees, a noble illustration of the appreciation in which 
fruits were held by the colonists at that time. 

The planting of fruits by the colonists under Gover- 
nor Winthrop, was, we presume, soon after their arrival, 
or the year 1630, for we find in the outfits of their 
cargo, seeds and stones of fruits particularly men- 
tioned. 

We find that, next to Blackstone, Governor Winthrop 
was the most prominent in the horticulture of Boston, 
having, in addition to his farms at Governor's Island, a 
garden opposite tiie foot of School street, his house 
beincr a little north of the Old South Church, and was 
demolished by the British in 1775. Winthrop had 
frequent correspondence with Endicott in regard to 
fruit trees, as had his son John, Governor of Con- 
necticut. Among the early records in regard to the 
production of fruit by the colonists, is an account 
of a good store of pippins from Governor Winthrop's 
garden. 

From the early settlements on our coast orchards 



6 THE HORTICULTURE OF 

and gardens were considered as among the most desir- 
able acquisitions of landholders. Among the earliest 
of which we have notes were the orchard of Blackstone, 
the nurseries of Gov. Endicott at Salem, the orchard and 
vineyard of Gov. Winthrop, and one hundred and fifty 
years later the orchards described by Paul Dudley in 
Roxbury, the orchards and nurseries of John Hancock 
on or near the site of the present State House, and of 
Judge John Lowell, who died in 1802, at Roxbury, 
and who is supposed to have built one of the first 
greenhouses in this part of the country. The Judge 
was father of John Lowell, the distinguished agricul- 
turist and pomologist, of whom we shall speak here- 
after. 

The colonial legislature granted to John Winthrop, 
then Governor of the colony, a section of land in our 
harbor known as Conant's Island, but afterwards as 
Governor's Island, on condition that he should plant 
thereon a vineyard, and should pay as rent therefor a 
hogshead of w^ine. Whether this vineyard was planted 
or not we have no means of ascertaining, but the con- 
tract was afterwards altered to make the rent two 
bushels of apples a year, one for the Governor and one 
for the General Court. ^ 

What the intermediate progress of horticulture in our 
vicinity may have been after the time when Endicott 
planted his pear tree at Salem, and Winthrop his orchard 
on Conant's Island, we can not positively determine. 
But we find in the " Philosophical Transactions, London, 
1734," a paper communicated to the Royal Society 
by Hon. Paul Dudley, of Roxbury, Chief Justice oT Mas- 
sachusetts, entitled " Some Observations on the Plants 
of New England, with Remarkable Instances of the 
Power of Vegetation," which gives us an account of the 



BOSTON AND VICINITY. 7 

size and culture of fruits knd vegetables growing in 
Eoxbury in 1726, as follows: 

" The Plants of England, as well as those of the Fields and Or- 
chards, as those of the Garden that have been brought over hither, 
suit might}' well with our Soil, and grow here to great Perfection. 

" Our apples are, without Doubt, as good as those of England, 
and much fairer to look to, and so are the Pears, but we have not 
got all the Sorts. 

"Our Peaches do rather excel those of England, and then we 
have not the Trouble or Expense of Walls for them ; for our Peach 
Trees are all Standards, and I have had in my own Garden seven 
or eight Hundred fine Peaches of the Rare-ripes, growing' at a Time 
on one Tree. 

'' Our people, of late Years, have run so much upon Orchards, 
that in a village near Boston, consisting of about forty Families, 
they made near three Thousand Barrels of Cyder. This was in the 
Year 1721. And in another Town, of two Hundred Families, in 
the same j-ear I am credibh' informed, the}' made near ten Thousand 
Barrels. Some of our Apple Trees will make six, some have made 
seven Barrels of Cyder, but this is not common ; and the Apples 
will yield from seven to nine Bushels for a Barrel of Cyder, 

" A good Apple Tree, with us, will measure from six to ten Foot 
in Girt. I have seen a fine Pearmain, at a Foot from the Ground, 
measure ten Feet and four inches round. This Tree, in one Year, 
has borne thirtj'-eight Bushels (by Measure) of as fine Pearmains, 
as ever I saw in England. A Kentish Pippin, at three foot from 
the Ground, seven Foot in Girt ; a Golden Rossetin, six Foot 
round. The largest Apple Tree that I could find,<was ten Foot 
and six Inches round, but this was no Graft. 

" An Orange Pear Tree grows the largest and yields the fairest 
Fruit. I know one of them near fort}' Foot high, that measures 
six Foot and six Inches in Girt, a Yard from the Ground, and has 
borne thirty Bushels at a Time ; I have a Warden Pear Tree, that 
measures five Foot six inches round. One of my Neighbors has a 
Bergamot Pear Tree that was brought from England in a Box, 
about the Year 1643, that now measures six Foot about, and has 
borne twenty-two Bushels of fine Pears in one Year. 

" Our Peach Trees are large and fruitful, and bear commonly in 
three Years from the Stone. I have one in my Garden of twelve 
Years Growth, that measures two Foot and an Inch in Girt a Yard 
from the Ground, which, two Years ago, bore me near a Bushel of 



8 THE HORTICULTUEE OF 

fine Peaches. Our common Cherries are not so good as the Kentish 
Cherries of England, and we have no Dukes or Heart Cherries, 
unless in two or three Gardens." 

One of the ancient gardens of Boston of which we have 
a distinct record is that of Gamaliel Wayte, in Summer 
street, on the site of the store of C. F. Hovey & Co.^ 
He came over with Edward Hutchinson, and is described 
as a planter in the records, which probably meant far- 
mer or gardener, the latter most likely to be the fact, 
for we find by the Book of Possessions this land is de- 
scribed as Wayte's Garden, and that it was noted for 
the superior excellence of its fruits. This was planted 
as early or before 1642. Wayte had other estates in 
Boston but we J^now not that he dwelt here himself." 
Gamaliel seems to have been one of our earliest horti- 
culturists and had the ability not only to plant but to 
partake of its fruits, for Judge Sewallin his Diary states 
that he lived to the age of eighty-seven, and not long 
before death was blessed with several new teeth. 

This estate passed into the hands of Leonard Vassal, 
a name which is honorably connected with the Massa- 
chusetts colony from its early period, thence to John 
Hubbard and Frederick W. Geyer. Here once resided, 
in the family of Mr. Geyer, Mrs. Maryatt, whose gar- 
dens at Wimbledon were at one time the finest in 
England for their beauty and variety of flowering 
plants, and we may reasonably conjecture, says Mr. 
Amory, that " the taste and skill that produce such 
marvels were nurtured and fostered in her earlier days 
among; the flower beds of Summer street." She died 
in 1855 at the age of 81. This estate passed in 1800 
to Samuel P. Gardner, Esq., the father of our respected 

1 See Boston Memorial, Vol. II., p. xxxi. 

2 Letter of Hon. Thomas C. Amory. 



BOSTON AND VICINITY. 9 

merchant and feilow-citizen, John L. Gardner, and 
from him the latter probably inherited that love of 
the fruits and flowers which for many years have distin- 
guished his conservatories in Brookline, and graced the 
exhibitions of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. 
Of this estate the Hon. Robert C. Winthrop remarks, 
"No garden in Boston had finer fruit fifty years ago, 
and it was cultivated and cared for with the hio^hest 
intelligence and skill. The best specimens of all the 
old varieties of pears were to be found there, and Mr. 
Gardner had a peculiar art of preserving them from 
decay and bringing them out after the season for them 
was over." How many of Waj^te's trees or plants sur- 
vived till these grounds came into the possession of Mr. 
Gardner we know not, but we have a diagram of the 
garden, and the lists of its fruits in 1811, furnished us 
by Mr. John L. Gardner, and as late as 1870 there was 
an old pear tree in the yard that was in a thrifty con. 
dition. 

Summer street was for a lony; time one of the most 
delightful in the city, and well merited its name from 
the overhanging branches of ornamental trees and the 
beauty and fruits of the gardens attached to the man- 
sions of its wealthy occupants. 

Here, in the early part of this century, were the 
residences of Gov. James Sullivan, afterwards of Wil- 
liam Gray, Joseph Barrell, Benjamin Bussej^, Nathaniel 
Goddard, Henry Hill, and David Ellis, father of Rev. 
Dr. George E. Ellis, whose gardens were stipplied with 
the fruits and flowers of those days, and where peaches 
and foreign grapes, and the old pears of which we have 
spoken, ripened every year. 

Per'rin May, a retired old merchant of Boston, was 
a skilful cultivator of fruits. His garden was on Wash- 
ington street, at the South End, where he produced 



10 THE HORTICULTURE OF 

remarkable specimens of fruits, especially the pear, 
which he attributed partly to the entrapping of cats 
and fertilizhig the soil with them. Of the early pears, 
which soon decayed at the core, he said they should be 
eaten by a chronometer. 

We have no detailed history of the progress of horti- 
culture in New England from the early days of which 
we have written. But we find in 1730 that apples 
from Blaxton's orchard were for sale in Boston market. 
In 1770 we find the following advertisement in the 
Boston Gazette, by the gardener of John Hancock, 
the first signer to the ever memorable Declaration of 
American Independence, and first Governor of the 
Connnonwealth of Massachusetts : 

" To be sold b^' George Spriggs, Gardener to John Hancock, 
Esq., a Large Assortment of English Fruit Trees, grafted and in- 
oculated of the best and richest kinds of Cherry Trees, Pear Trees, 
Plumb Trees, Peach Trees, Apricots, Nectarines, Quinces, Lime 
Trees, Apple Trees, grafted and ungrafted, and sundry- Mulberry 
Trees, which will be fit to transplant the next year, and Med- 
leys." 

John Hancock's nursery and pasture were near the 
site of the present State House ; ^ and his garden and 
orchard surrounded his princely mansion. Governor 
Hancock's garden is said to have been one of great 
note, having received constant accessions from Eng- 
land. Miss Eliza Greenleaf Gardner, a distant relative 
of Mrs. Hancock, who still lives, was for many years 
an inmate of the Hancock house, and states that — 

" The grounds were laid out in ornamental flower-beds, bordered 
with box ; box trees, of large size, with a great varietj' of fruit, 
among which were scA'eral immense mulberry trees." — Drake's Old 
Landmarks of Boston, p. 339, 340. 

1 See Boston Memorial, Vol. II., p. xlvi. 



BOSTON" AND VICINITY. 11 

Among the prominent gardens which existed in 
Boston previous to the Revolution, was that of Gov- 
ernor Thomas Hutchinson.'* This was on Garden 
Court, extending back to Hanover and Fleet streets. 
These grounds are said to have been extensive, 
and tradition informs us were well stocked with the 
choice fruits and flowers. of those days. His splendid 
residence is minutely and graphically described by Mrs. 
Lydia Maria Child in the " Rebels." This was located 
next to the celebrated house of Sir H. Frankland, 
which, like others in that region, are reputed to have 
had fine gardens, their possessors being of the elite of 
society, and North Square, the rival or court end of 
the town.' 

Gov. Hutchinson had also a residence on Milton Hill, 
with orchards and a garden. This estate was confis- 
cated, and became successively the residence of James 
Warren, Barney Smith, Jonathan Russell, and now of 
Mlss Rosalie G. Russell. Hutchinson appears to have 
been fond of rural life and was himself a practical cultiva- 
tor, having grafted with his own hand a tree for _Mrs 
Jeremy Smith with the St. Michael pear. This tree, 
with some of the remains of his orchards, survived until 
nearly the present time. Gov. Hutchinson planted the 
old button-wood trees on the sides of the road of Milton 
Hill.= 

Among the gardens in the early part of this century 
were those scattered over Pemberton Hill from 
Southack's court, now Howard street, to Beacon street 
up and around the capitol. Here was the garden 
of Doctor James Lloyd, father of our Senator in Con- 
gress, running back to Somerset street, where is stiM 

* Boston Memorial. Vol. II., pp. xi, 52G. 

1 Old Landmarks of Boston, page 166 and 167. 

2 Letter of Edmund J. Baker. 



12 THE HOETICULTUEE OF 

standing the house built b}' his son, the Hon. James 
Lloyd. " 

From Southack court, now Howard street, many of 
the residences over Cotton, Pemberton, and Beacon Hill, 
and around the State House, had gardens. Here dwelt 
Kev. John Cotton, Gov. Endicott, and at a later day, 
Gardiner Greene, Wm. Phillips, and at the corner of 
Beacon and Tremont, Samuel Eliot, grandfather of 
President Eliot, of Harvard College. 

Gov. James Bowdoin's garden extended from the 
corner of Beacon and Bowdoin streets over to what is 
now Ashburton street, and Dr. John Joy's from Beacon 
to Mt. Vernon street. 

On Tremont street, nearly opposite King's Chapel, 
was the estate of Lieut.-Gov. Wm. Phillips, formerly 
the residence of Peter Faneuil,* of Faneuil Hall mem- 
ory, whose gardens and grounds are described as being 
very fine. Here, it is said, was built by Andrew 
Faneuil. uncle of Peter, the first greenhouse -in New 
England. Miss Quincy, in her memoir, thus describes 
the place : 

"The deep court3'ard ornamented by flowers and shrubs was 
divided into upper and lower plats. The terraces which rose from 
the paved court were supported b}" massive walls of granite, and a 
grasshopper glittered on the summer-house, which commanded a 
view only second to Beacon hill." — Drake's Old LandmarTcs, page 
54 ; also^ Miss Quincy's Letter. 

But the most conspicuous and extensive, and elegant 
garden of those days was that of Gardiner Greene, who 
also had one of the early greenhouses in Boston. The 
grounds were terraced and planted with vines, fruits, 
ornamental trees, flowering shrubs and plants, and were 
to me, when I visited them, sixty-five years ago, a scene 

* See Boston Memorial, Vol. II., pp. 259, 523, and the view in Vol. IV. 



BOSTOX AND VICINITY. 13 

of beauty and enchantment I shall never forget.^ Here 
were growing in the open air Black Hamburg and 
White Chasselas grapes, apricots, nectarines, peaches, 
pears and jDlums in perfection, presenting a scene 
which made a deep impression on my mind, and which 
gave me some of those strong incentives that have 
governed me in the cultivation of fruits and flowers. 
Here were many ornamental trees brought from foreign 
lands; one of which, the Salisburia adiantifolia, the 
Japan Ginkgo tree, was removed through the personal 
efforts of the late Dr. Jacob Bigelow and planted 
on the upper city mall where it now stands. 

Nearly down to Tremont street was the house of the 
late Doctor Samuel A. Shurtleff, one of the early vice- 
presidents of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, 
in whose garden was originated the ShurtlefF grape 
and other fruits, now growing on his estate in Brook- 
line ; on the latter estate were raised from seed the 
President, General Grant, Admiral Farragut, and 
other Pears, varieties which should be more generally 
known. 

One of the largest gardens of that day was 
that of Governor James Bowdoin, to which we have 
referred. He had a large house and an extensive lot 
of land on Beacon street at the corner of Bowdoin 
street, reaching quite over the hill to what is now 
Ashburton Place. There he had a garden abounding 
in the finest fruits, pears and peaches, apples and 
grapes. Hon. James Bowdoin, his son, resided on Milk 
street, in the house where our honored citizen, the 
Hon. Eobert C. Winthrop, was born, known as the 
"Mansion House." This garden extended back 
almost to Franklin street, and was filled with fruit 

1 See frontispiece of Boston Memorial, Vol. IV. 



14 THE HORTICULTURE OF 

trees of the best sorts. Here General Henry Dearborn, 
of revolutionary memory, who married the widow of 
Mr. Bowdoin, resided for a while, and his son. General 
H. A. S. Dearborn, the first President of the Massachu- 
setts Horticultural Society, was familiar with that 
garden, and from it he probably gained some of the 
zeal that characterized him as a leader in horticul- 
ture. Of this garden, says Mr. Winthrop : " There were 
no more delicious Saint Michael, Brown Beurre, Mon- 
sieur Jean, or Saint Germain pears to be found any 
where in Boston than I have eaten from those 
trees." Mr. Bowdoin. had also a large farm at Dor- 
chester, now known as Mount Bowdoin, where he had 
an orchard of apple and pear trees. He also experi- 
mented with fruit trees on Naushon Island, now the 
property of the Hon. John M. Forbes. His main atten- 
tion was, however, given to horses, cows and sheep; 
the breeding of the latter being still continued. This 
estate was in the care of the father of Mr. Winthrop 
for many years after the death of his uncle, Mr. 
Bowdoin ; and, says Mr. Winthrop, " I have worn clothes 
made of Naushon wool." The cheese from this Island 
was quite celebrated more than half a century ago ; 
and Mr. W^inthrop adds : " I doubt if any one in Massa- 
chusetts did more for Agriculture and Horticulture at 
that period than James Bowdoin, the son of the 
Governor."' 

Another garden worthy of record, which stood on 
what is now the site of the Revere House, was that of 
Kirk Boott, an eminent merchant and one of the 
founders of Lowell. It was the home of John Wright 
and William Boott. Here, fifty years ago, was a good 
garden with fruit trees and vines in which were grow- 

1 Letter of Hon. Robert C. Winthrop. 



BOSTON AND VICINITY. 15 

ing in the open air foreign grapes and other tender 
fruits, which now succeed only under glass. Here was 
also a greenhouse with a choice collection of plants. 
Some of these were obtained from the Duke of Bedford 
and others in England through the acquaintance of Dr. 
Francis Boott, a brother, and a celebrated botanist in 
London. The collection of Amaryllises and Orchids was 
the best in the country, the latter having been the first 
attempt in New England for the culture of this tribe of 
plants. Here forty years ago was a magnificent plant 
of the Phaius grandiflora (Bletia Tankervillece), then a 
rare plant. Mr. Boott gave his plants to the Hon. 
John A. Lowell, from whence some of the Orchids 
went to the collection of Edward S. Rand, of Dedham, 
and to which he made large additions by importation 
from Europe, and were finally given, by him and his 
friend James Lawrence to the Botanic Garden at Cam- 
bridge, E. S. Band, Jr., had an extensive collection of 
Orchids, some of which are now in the grand collection 
of Frederick L. Ames, at North Easton, which has been 
by importation at great expense so much enlarged as 
to occupy three houses for their growth, and is scarcely 
second to any in this country. Mr. Ames is one of the 
most enterprising and generous contributors to the ex- 
hibitions of the Massachusetts Horticultural -Societj^, 
having, in addition to these, a fernery, a stove, a con- 
servatory, two graperies, a rose house, a propagating 
and a vegetable house. He has for years received from 
Europe all the new and desirable plants soon after their 
introduction. Some of his Orchids have cost from 100 
to 180 guineas a plant. 

Other old gardens on Summer street and vicinity 
were those of Amory, Salisbury, and of Edmund 
Quincy, running back to Bedford street; Judge 
Jackson's, on the corner of Bedford and Chauncy 



16 THE nOKTICULTQRE OF 

streets, where the building of the Massachusetts Chari- 
table Mechanics' Association now stands; and the 
Eowe and Barrell estates, on what is now Chauncy 
street; a part of the latter, at the foot of Franklin 
street, being drained by Mr. Barrell, and converted 
into a garden. 

Mr. George W. Lyman's recollection of the gardens 
and open grounds of Boston, is as follows : 

" On Green and Chardon streets was Mr. Samuel Parkman's 
estate, with a large garden. On Green street that of Samuel Gore, 
and one other large estate, owner's name forgotten. On Bowdoin 
square and Chardon street, estate of Gov. Gore, garden and land, 
the estate of Joseph Coolidge, 2d, and Kirk Boott. On Cambridge 
and Middlecot, now Bowdoin street, was the large estate of Joseph 
Coolidge, the elder, of Mr. Mackey, and much vacant land on the 
west. On what is now Tremont street, the gardens of Dr. Dan- 
forth, Dr. LoA'd, Gardiner Greene and Gov. Phillips, extending 
to highland, and including the Bowdoin estate, and perhaps others. 
On Beacon Hill was a monument, with a gilt eagle on its top. I 
regret the destruction of this hill and monument, but it was 
invaded and destroyed by parties known as improvers, and this 
healthy gravel and fertile loam, as well as that on Pemberton Hill, 
was removed and dumped into the filthy mill pond. I hope the 
onl}' remaining classical hill, the Copps, will be preserved for all 
time. On Summer street was the garden of William Gra}', who 
defined ' enough' as ' a little more ;' that of Benjamin Bussej-, and 
that of Samuel P. Gardner, which bore some very fine pears not now 
known. On Beacon street was the large estate of Gov. Hancock, 
extending to Belknap, changed by Cornelius Coolidge to Joy street, 
and northerly' to Mt. Vernon street, and of Dr. Jo}', from Beacon 
to Mt. Vernon streets. There was south of Walnut street a large 
lot of land extending to Charles River, with a small powder house 
and a spring of water on the same." 

Writes Mr. Lyman, under his own hand. May 24, 1880, "this 
lot is now covered with houses and streets." 

"You will perceive that the old town of Boston is ver}' much 
altered from what it was at the date of m^' memorandum. In my 
opinion it was a much pleasanfer place to reside in than what it is at 
present. I was pleased with your kindly recollection of me, and I 



BOSTON AND VICINITY. 17 

hope 3-011 will continue to enjoy j-our fondness for horticulture, 
flowers, etc., for manj" ^-ears. 

I remain A'our friend and servant, 

Geo. W. Lymak." 

The great event in the progress of our horticulture 
during the present century was the establishment of 
the Massachusetts Horticultural Society in 1829. 
With this there arose a ucay era in the science 
of American Horticulture, that has not only extended 
its influences all over our own continent, but has 
reached, enriched, beautified and energized other 
portions of the world. "Its first president was Gen. 
Henry Alexander Scammel Dearborn, whose name 
will ever be gratefully remembered, and to whom we 
are more indebted than to any other man, in its early 
history, for its prestige and popularity, both at home 
and abroad. From its first president down to the 
present time the Society has been fortunate in securing 
gentlemen to fill the chair, all of whom have been 
lovers of rural art. Dearborn, Cook, Vose, Walker, 
Cabot, Breck, and Stickney have gone before us, 
but, thanks to a kind Providence, Hovey, Hyde, 
Strong, Parkman, Gray, Hayes, and the writer, are 
still spared to labor in carrying out the beneficent 
designs of its noble founders.'" But, perhaps, the 
most beneficial act of the Society was in founding the 
Mount Auburn Cemetery, that "Garden of Graves," 
where lie so many of the loved and lost ones of this 
community, and from which the Society has received 
already large sums of money, and is entitled to a per- 
petual share of its income in the future. And to repeat 
the words uttered on a former occasion : " Be it ever 

^ Mr. Wilder's Address at the Semi-Centennial Anniversary of the Massa- 
chusetts Horticultural Society, September, 1879. ■ 



18 THE HORTICULTUEE OF 

remembered that to the Massachusetts Horticultural 
Society the public are indebted for the foundation and 
consecration of Mount Auburn Cemetery." ' 

While we have no space to dwell on our long pre- 
served Common with its lawns, its malls, fountains and 
monuments, we must not forget the Public Garden of 
Boston. The origin of this may be traced to the desire 
of a few of her citizens who w ere interested in horti- 
cultural improvements and rural embellishments, but 
more especially in the establishment of a Botanic or 
a Public Garden, similar to those of the cities of the 
old world. Among these gentlemen was Mr. Horace 
Gray, father of our Chief Justice Gray, to whose great 
enterprise and indomitable perseverance we are, per- 
haps, more indebted than to any other man for the 
original idea for our Public Garden. Mr. Gray had a 
small conservatory attached to his town house in King- 
ston street, supplied from his country greenhouses at 
Brighton, where he had grapehouses with curved 
roofs, of which he was a great advocate. Mr. Gray, 
in 1839, with a few associates, obtained from the 
city a lease of the present site for a Botanic Gar- 
den, upon which a greenhouse was built and the grounds 
partially laid out and planted with a variety of orna- 
mental trees and plants. A company was organized, 
of which Mr. Gray was chairman of the proprietors, 
and went zealously to work. A very large circus 
building situated just back of the corner, west of 
Beacon and Charles streets, was converted into an 
immense conservatory for plants and birds. This had 
four galleries, to each of which plants were assigned 
according to a proper classification of their character. 



1 Mr. Wilder's Address at the laying of the Corner Stone of Horticultural 
Hall, on School Street, Sept. 14, 1844. 



BOSTOX AXD VICINITY. 19 

This was a place of great attraction for the public 
until its destruction by fire, when the entire collection 
was lost. The following extract is from a Boston paper 
of that date, and will give some idea of its character : 

" The Conservatory. — We advise our friends who are as usual 
seeking amusement during the Christmas holida^-s, not to omit look- 
ing in at the Public Conservator}'. There are above one thousand 
Camellia Japonica plants, some of the largest now in full splendor, 
and others on the point of bursting their beautiful buds. Among 
them are at least twent}^ full grown trees, ten to thirty years old. 
It is well known that the former possessor of this superb collection 
of Camellias, IMarshall P. Wilder, of Dorchester, spared neither 
pains nor expense to procure the finest plants from the justly cele- 
brated nurseries in Europe, and that the most recent and most 
highly estimated seedling varieties are comprised in it. But it is 
not too well known that one of his motives for disposing of this 
collection to the society', at a great pecuniar}' sacrifice to himself, 
was the desire that his fellow-citizens might conveuiently and fre- 
quently enjo}' the pleasure of viewing it. It is calculated that 
during the next five or six weeks j several thousand Camellia 
blossoms will expand, hundreds are nowiu full bloom, and contrast 
beautifully with the dark glossj' fohage. Several of the Acacia 
tribe, the pride of the Flora of New South Wales, are likewise in 
beaut}', as is also the fine Poinsettia pulcherrima, named in compli- 
ment to our minister in Mexico, Mr. Poinsetl, who sent it thence 
to Charleston in 1828, whence it found its way to Europe. This 
plant was presented by the Hon. John Lowell, of Roxbury. We 
are also informed that the society has recently received ten or twelve 
cases of plants from Rio Janeiro, containing about one hundred 
varieties of the curious air 2)lants now attracting so much attention 
in Europe ; most of these are beginning to vegetate in a small stove 
erected for this purpose below ; these will, no doubt, be exhibited 
in the Conservatory as they come into flower. We trust the public 
will not fail liberally to support this establishment, which, altliough 
now in its infancy, promises to become the pride and ornament of 
this wealthy and polished city." 

Among the plants destroyed was one whose history 
may be noted. It was a large, Double White Camellia, 
rooted from a cutting by Dr. Dixwell, in his study, now 



20 THE HORTICULTURE OF 

Allston street, and purchased of him by the writer 
about fifty years since for the sum of thirty dollars. 
This Camellia was burnt down nearly to its root, but 
like the fabled goddess springing from the fire, it after- 
wards sprouted up into growth again. It then went to 
Mr. Jonathan French, of Roxbury, and thence to Wil- 
liam E. Baker, Ridge Hill Farm, Wellesley, where it is 
now in a green old age. The adjacent grounds were 
filled up and the garden enlarged by the city, with the 
provision that they are never to be built on. In 1859 
they became our Public Garden, and in 1860 this was 
remodelled by laying it out and planting it on a definite 
and proper plan. This garden embraces about twenty- 
four acres of land, containing a choice collection of 
ornamental trees, shrubs, and plants ; and in the sum- 
mer season, with its ninety thousand bedded plants, is an 
object of splendor and interest, being the most delightr 
ful resort for thousands of citizens and strangers, and 
especially for children, who in pleasant weather are drawn 
in their carriages or stroll through its walks. From its 
inception the Garden, with its statues, fountains and 
floral attractions, has been every year more highly ap- 
preciated, and we trust it will soon attain to that 
perfection which a Boston garden should exhibit. The 
number of trees in this garden is 1500, and the whole 
number of trees under city care is 23,000. 



LETTER OF JOPIN CADNESS, 
Now LIVING IN Flushing, New York. 

I was engaged by Dr. Boot, of London, through Dr. John Lind- 
\ey, Secretary- of the London Horticultural Society's Gardens at 
Chiswiek. I left England in June, 1839, arriving in the United 
States in August, and took charge of the Boston Public Garden 
on the 7th of that month, under a three years' engagement. 



BOSTON AND VICINITY. 21 

I found a large, and at that time a verv fine collection of plants, 
especially' Camellias, among which were some of the largest plants 
in the countrj', notabl}' Alba 2)lenas^ one of which was said to have 
been raised from a cutting b}' the late Dr. Dixwell, of Boston. 
Also quite a number of grafted standard trees, with fine heads, of 
all the old varieties, such as Gilesii, Chandleri, Elegans, Flo^'i, 
Hume's blush, Duchesse d' Orleans, Donklaerii, with man}' French 
varieties, and all imported plants. Among other greenhouse plants 
manj' of the most showj' new Holland plants, then in fashion ; some 
varieties of Chinese Azaleas, Ericas, and a varietj' of tropical plants, 
as Strelitzias, Sago Palm, Bananas, Hibiscus, Eugenias, (Rose ap- 
ple) and a large collection of Cape bulbs and Amar3'llis, Pelargoni- 
ums, many of Beck's and Cock's (of Loudon) new seedling prize 
flowers, with the finest set of herbaceous Calceolarias ever seen here. 

The Conservatory and two other houses were erected on land 
west of Charles street. The Conservatory was a verj- large struc- 
ture and had an imposing appearance but was in a bad position, 
being exposed to the cold winds of the Back Ba}', and in severe win- 
ter weather was difficult to manage. There was also a fine collec- 
tion of tropical and European singing birds in the Conservator}', 
of which were some rare speciinens. 

The gardens w^ere at the foot, on the west side of the Common, 
as now, with entrance foot of Beacon street, and were only partly 
laid out. From the nature of the land, it being from four to six 
feet below the street level, it was filled in with all sorts of city 
refuse, and a great part of it subject to the inroads of the tide. 
However, a fine broad walk was laid from the entrance to the end 
of the Common, with a border planted with ornamental trees, 
shrubber}', standard roses, herbaceous and other plants which had 
a fine appearance. A few large beds were cut out wherever the 
soil would admit of it, and planted with the Dahlia, of w^hich there 
was a good collection. 

There was also imported from Groom, of Walworth, England, a 
complete bed of prize Tulips, the first ever imported into the United 
States, valued at SIOOO, but costing Mr. Gray $1500, and which for 
a time was a great attraction. Mr. Gray supported the place dur- 
ing the time I had charge of it, and I always understood that he 
was the leading spirit in its establishment. He devoted much of 
his time and means to aid in its success, and in connection with the 
late Mr. Teschemacher, did more to that end than au}' other per- 
son. The two great difficulties in the case were, I think, from the 
nature of the ground it was impossible to plant the proper kinds of 



22 THE HORTICULTURE OF 

ornamental trees that, in their growth, would have improved and 
changed in a short time the character of the place ; also the want 
of the Conservator}' and other glass, which would have been very 
effective on the place. 

The Public Garden was under the supervision of 
Prof. James E. Teschemacher, afterwards Corresponding 
Secretary of the .Massachusetts Horticultural Society, 
and one of the most eminent botanists and chemists of 
our day. 

In this connection, although not strictly horticultu- 
ral, our history would be incomplete did we not remem- 
ber the Great Elm of Boston Common, supposed by some, 
probably a mere fancy, to have been planted by Mr. 
Blackstone ; the noble Paddock Elms in front of the 
Granary burying ground, whose running roots searching 
for food pierced the dark charnel vaults within, like that 
other tree whose roots held within its loving embrace 
the honored heads of puritan and patriot dust. The 
Paddock Elms were planted about the year 1762, but 
have yielded to the daring spirit which is fast making a 
new city out of old Boston. The monster Elms of Essex 
street are gone, and also the old " Liberty Tree" once at 
its corner on Washington street, consecrated by our 
fathers to the rights of man, as a fit representative of 
that national tree which now overshadows our vast 
country, and under whose wide-spreading branches 
more than fifty millions of happy freemen now recline 
in peace and safety. 

The Great Elm was also at a time one of the secret 
places of resort for the Sons of Liberty, and then bore 
the name of the " Liberty Tree," but this must not be con- 
founded with the " Liberty Tree " of which we have 
spoken and which was cut down by the British soldiers 
durino; the sieo-e of Boston. Of the age of the Great Elm 
we cannot speak positively. It has been known as far 



BOSTON AND VICINITY. 23 

back as tradition can go, and it is reasonable to suppose 
that it was growing there before the arrival of the 
Colonists, where the night-bird held her wakeful vigils 
in the branches above, the sonorous frogs their nightly 
incantations in the pools below, and where the wild 
flower was 

"born to blush unseen, 



And waste its sweetness on tlie desert air." 

Until 1830 this old tree stood without special care, 
where, under its umbrageous shade, millions of souls 
have rested on their promenade, and hundreds of the 
lowing herd have chewed in quiet the fragrant cud. 
And could this old tenant of the forest have told his story 
of the past, how many councils of the red man, plans of 
patriotism, tales of love, plots of mischief, and acts of 
sin would be revealed ? But, like all things terrestrial, 
which must have an end, this venerable giant .of the 
forest came to its destruction. In the gale of February 
15th, 1876, its monstrous trunk and towering branches 
fell to rise no more. Thousands of relic hunters flocked 
to get souvenirs of the tree and carried them home in 
triumph, sawing, cutting, and carrying them away as 
relics snatched from some holy shrine. Universal sorrow 
was manifested by the public at the loss of this venerable 
tree. Resolutions of regret were passed by the Massa- 
chusetts Horticultural Society, and the waiter was re- 
quested to solicit from the Mayor a section for preserva- 
tion in its cabinet, a request which was granted, both to 
this Society, to the New England Historic Genealogical 
Society and to himself, from which were made noble 
chairs, commemorative of the Centennial of our Repub- 
lic in 1876. 

Among the most potent agents in the promotion of 
horticulture at the beginning of the present century 



24 THE HOKTICULTUKE OF 

was the establishment of the Botanic Garden at Cam- 
bridge ; furnishing, as it has done to the present day, a 
most extensive and interesting collection of native and 
foreign plants collected from all parts of the world ; 
where the student may be instructed, the eye charmed, 
the senses gratified with an infinite variety of curi- 
ous and beautiful trees and various types of the floral 
kingdom ; and where the science of plant life and its mani- 
fold relations to the arts and industries are illustrated, 
in their connection with the happiness of the human race. 
This garden was established at the beginning of the 
present century, and has ever exercised a happy influ- 
ence on horticulture and the knowledge of plants. It had 
for its early patron the Massachusetts Society for Pro- 
moting Agriculture, which in 1801 laid its foundation 
by a liberal subscription to establish a Professorship of 
Natural History at Cambridge, culminating in tlie 
planting of the Botanic Garden,' at Harvard Univer- 
sity, which has exerted a direct influence on the taste 
that ultimately led to the formation of the Massachu- 
setts Horticultural Society.' 

Under the direction of Professors Thomas Nuttall, 
Thaddeus William Harris, Asa Gray, and Charles S. Sar- 
gent, it has had a world wide reputation, and now under 
the direction of Professor Goodale, is in a very satis- 
factory condition. It has been much improved by the 
efforts of Dr. Gray and Professor Sargent, but still needs 
funds to promote its usefulness. Through the exertions 
of Prof Goodale the sum of more than fifty thousand 
dollars has been already subscribed towards a permanent 
fund, which we have no doubt will be established, and 
thus this most useful institution will be placed in a 

^ Transactions for the Massachusetts Society for the Promotion of Agricul- 
ture, New Series, Vol. 1st, page 28th. 

' History of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, page 40. 



BOSTON AND VICINITY. 25 

condition to maintain the reputation which it so richly 
deserves. 

The Bussey Institution ' and the Arnold Arboretum 
at Jamaica Plain, also departments of Harvard Uni- 
versity, give promise of great usefulness, not only in 
promoting Agriculture and Arboriculture, but will be 
prominent agents in advancing the cause of Horticul- 
ture, and a knowledge of the endless variety of trees 
and plants, where, under the direction of Prof. Sargent, 
curator, are now growing 2500 species of trees and 
shrubs. The funds for the establishment of the Bussey 
Institution were derived from the bequest. of Benjamin 
Bussey, and those for the Arboretum from James Ar- 
nold, of New Bedford, who constituted the late Dr. Geo. 
B. Emerson and others, trustees, with authority to appro- 
priate the same for such a purpose. These institutions 
are in a prosperous condition, each carrying out the ob- 
jects for which they were designed. This place, now 
called Woodland Hill, on which Thomas Motley, President 
of the Massachusetts Society for Promoting Agriculture, 
now resides, by virtue of Mr. Bussey's will in bequest to 
Mrs. Motley, was purchased by Mr. Bussey in 1815, where 
he afterwards had orchards of various fruits, pears, 
plums and peaches, especially of the apple and cherries, 
largely Mazzard, as Mr. Bussey used to say, for the 



^The i^roperty of Woodland Hill was given to Harvard College, on the fol- 
lowing conditions, viz. : — " That they will establish there a course of instruction 
in practical Agriculture, in useful and ornaiiiental gardening, in botany, and 
in such other branches of natural sciences as may tend to promote a knowledge 
of practical agriculture, and the various arts subservient thereto and connected 
therewith, and cause such course of lectures to be delivered there, at such 
seasons of the year and under such regulations as they may think best adapted 
to promote the ends designed; and also to furnish gratuitous aid, if they shall 
think it expedient, to such meritorious persons as may resort there for 
instruction; the institution so established shall be called the "Bussej' Institu- 
tion." — Thomas Motley's Letter. 



26 THE HOKTICULTURE OF 

birds ; " for we found they were quite fond of cherries, 
and took their full share." ' 

In regard to the environs of our city, we would state 
that from a very early period these have been cele- 
brated for their elegant estates, fine gardens, and for 
the rural adornments bestowed on them by our wealthy 
merchants and citizens, who, as the city increased, 
required more room for commercial purposes, and 
transplanted many of their trees and plants to their 
country homes. Dorchester, Roxbury, Brookline, and 
Cambridge, were famous in early history for their interest 
in agricultural and horticultural improvement. For the 
first twenty years of the existence of the Massachusetts 
Horticultural Society, Roxbury and Dorchester fur- 
nished all the presidents and treasurers of that institu- 
tion. 

In Dorchester were the gardens and orchards of 
some of the first settlers, and some of the old pear 
trees planted by them have survived to the present 
time. Of those in the present century which have been 
more or less noted we may mention the estates of the 
Reverend Dr. Thaddeus Mason Harris,' William Clapp, 
Ebenezer T. Andrews the partner of Isaiah Thomas, of 
Samuel Downer, Cheever Newhall, Zebedee Cook, 
Elijah Vose, William Oliver, John Richardson, William 
R. Austin. From other gardens have gone forth many of 
the choice fruits which are now in cultivation, such as 
the Downer cherry, the Andrews, Frederick Clapp, the 
Harris, the Clapp's Favorite, and other seedling pears, 
and we hope the last named may endure even longer 
than the marble on which its form is engraved in 



1 Letter of Thomas Motley. 

^Dr. Harris was a lover of fine fruit, and once said to the writer, " Your 
exhibition of pears is grand ; but there is one variety that I miss, — the Bon 
Chretien (the good Christian). I sliall bring some from my garden tomorrow. 



BOSTON AND VICINITY. 27 

Forest Hills Cemetery;* and to these we might add 
the Dorchester blackberry, the President Wilder straw- 
berry'-, and just over the borders of Dorchester in Milton 
the Diana grape, raised by Mrs. Diana Crehore, who still 
lives at the advanced age of eighty-four years. This was 
brought to notice in 1843, being the first seedling 
American grape at the exhibitions of the Massachusetts 
Horticultural Society deemed worthy of notice. 

Zebedee Cook, the second president of the Massachu- 
setts Horticultural Society, some fifty years since had a 
large garden opposite the Andrews estate, on the east 
side of the then turnpike road, where he successfully grew 
several kinds of foreign grapes, apricots, peaches, and 
pears. Among the grapes was a white variety, named 
Horatio, after Mr. Horatio Sprague. Consul at Gibraltar, 
from whom he received it, — known now as the Nice 
grape. 

Mr. Newhall was a distinguished cultivator, and the 
first treasurer of the Massachusetts Horticultural Socie- 
ty. His orchards were extensive, embracing a large 
number of varieties, especially of the pear, which he 
cultivated with success until about three years since, 
when he died at the age of ninety. This place was 
once the residence of Thomas Motley, father of the his- 
torian, John Lathrop Motley, and his brother, Thomas 
Motley, the president of the Massachusetts Society for 
Promoting Agriculture, who were here born. 

Samuel Downer,^ one of the founders of the Horticul- 

* The Massachusetts Agricultural Club, desiring to name this pear for the 
writer, and to disseminate it for general cultivation, offered Mr. Clapp one 
thousand dollars for the control of it; but he declined, preferring to give to it 
the name it now bears. 

2 He was son of the celebrated Dr. Downer, " the fighting surgeon," who 
had a personal encounter with a British soldier on his return from the battle 
at Concord. Their fire having missed, Downer knocked him down and then 
ran him through with his own bayonet, and said, " it was not ten minutes 
before I got another good shot." Dr. Downer was in prison in Halifax, from 



28 THE HORTICULTURE OF 

tiiral Society, had a "large orchard which still remains 
in good order under the intelligent care of his son, 
Samuel Downer, Jr. He was an early, enterprising, and 
useful member, and took a deep interest in pomology 
until his death, at eighty years of age. He was 
especially interested in the origin and character of 
native fruits, and, as he used to say, he loved to be 
"mousing" after new varieties, especially such as were 
of native origin. 

Elijah Vose, the third president of the Horticultural 
Society, had a fine plantation of fruits, and especially 
grew to great perfection the Duchesse d'Angouleme 
pear, which sometimes commanded seventy-five cents 
to a dollar each for extraordinary specimens. 

William Oliver, vice president of the Horticultural 
Society, had a good orchard of pears and other fruits 
which, after his death, became the residence of ex-Gov- 
ernor Henry J. Gardner. 

Another very old garden in Dorchester, of which our 
valued citizen, Mr. John Richardson, has been the occu- 
pant and owner for a long course of years, deserves 
a record in our Memorial volume. The house was the 
birthplace of Edward Everett, and is understood to 
have been built in colonial times by Gov. Oliver, who 
is supposed to have laid out the garden, which is 
now interesting from its old trees and antique appear- 
ance, but more especially for the number of choice 
fruits and flowers, man}^ of which have been produced 
from seed by the hands of its skilful proprietor. 

The pear orchard of the late William R. Austin, 

which he escaped; was also in the Dartmoor and the Forten prisons for 
a while, and was in several desperate engagements under John Paul Jones, 
both as soldier and surgeon. He was engaged in the expedition up the 
Kennebec to Canada. Massachusetts awarded him fifteen dollars for his loss 
of surgical instruments. — Letter of Samuel Downer, Jr., May 5, 1881 (since 
deceased). 



BOSTON AND YICINITY. 29 

treasurer of the Horticultural Society, was, aud is still, 
famous for the size and beauty of its fruit, produced by 
pruning his trees into the shape of a wine-glass. 

And here, in the Dorchester district, if I may be per- 
mitted to allude to it, are the experimental grounds of 
the writer, formerly the estate of Gov. Increase Sumner, 
which, at the time of his death, 1799, passed into the 
hands of his son. Gen. William H. Sumner, one of the 
founders of the Horticultural Society, and finally to 
its present owner. On these experimental grounds 
have been produced, under the personal inspection 
of its present proprietor, within the last fifty years, 
more than twelve hundred varieties of fruits, and 
from thence there was exhibited, on one occasion, 
four hundred and four distinct varieties of the pear. 
Here was originated, by the art of hybridization, the Ca- 
mellias Wilderi and Mrs. Abby Wilder, which received, 
more than thirty years ago, a special prize of fifty 
dollars ; also the Mrs. Julia Wilder, the Jennie Wilder, 
and other Camellias of great perfection, and from this 
place went to the Boston Public Garden, on its founda- 
tion, in the vear 1839, the entire collection of o-reen- 
house and garden plants to which we have alluded 
before. 

Roxbury was noted for its interest in fruit culture 
at an early period, as has been seen by the statement 
of Chief Justice Paul Dudley, already quoted. This 
town was remarkable for its production of apples and 
the quantity of cider manufactured. The farm of 
the late Ebenezer Seaver, member of Congress from 1803 
to 1813, was distinguished for the culture of fruit- 
This estate has passed regularly down in the family line 
through Joshua, Jonathan, the Ebenezer Seavers, and the 
Parkers, lineal descendants, who now reside on it. In 
the account books of Jonathan Seaver, from 1731 and 



30 THE HORTICULTURE OF 

on, we find that he was largely interested in the 
manufacture of " Sider." From 1740 to 1749, we find 
the Reverend Thomas Prince, minister of the Old South 
Church, annually charged with from three to five 
barrels of " Sider " for several years, and that in April 
24th, 1749, Mr. Seaver credited him with "Thirty 
Pounds in Cash, old tenor in part, for Sundries." 

From the preceding extracts we may infer that an 
abundance of apples was raised at that time. The old 
and new cider mills are remembered by Mrs. Parker, a 
daughter of "Squire Seaver," who, at an advanced age, 
still lives in the old house. Large heaps of fragrant 
apples lay outside of the mill in the autumn, and during 
the second Ebenezer Seaver's day, a little more than a 
hundred years ago, the bears were attracted to them 
from the " Rocky Wilderness Land " that lay to the 
southwest, towards what is now Forest Hills. Upon 
one occasion his bearship lingered tasting till he was 
discovered. Mr. Seaver and his neighbors gave chase, 
and finally captured him on the marsh land in Dor- 
chester in the vicinity of what is now Crescent Avenue. 
The neighbors were invited to a feast in honor of the 
occasion, at Mr. Seaver's house, the bear furnishing 
the chief dish as well as a steak for each guest to take 
home. 

Mrs. Parker remembers several large ancient pear 
trees that stood on the home lot and were old and vig- 
orous when she was young. An Orange and a Minot 
pear tree of great size in the trunk, and an excellent 
pear for cooking, and a Gennetin pear tree still remain 
on the lawn, whose age none can remember, W'hich bears 
two or three bushels yearly of its small, early fruit. 
During the period of Ebenezer Seaver's service in Con- 
gress, which ended in 1813, Col. Matlock, a gentleman 
he met there, gave him some scions from the original 



BOSTON AND VICINITY. 31 

Seckel pear tree, near Philadelphia. He sent them care- 
fully home in a letter, and his son Jonathan grafted them 
before his return, they being the first of the kind, as 
far as he knew, in this vicinity. The tree is still 
flourishing, and on Saturday, September 27th, 1879, there 
were picked from it over two barrels of pears. One 
individual pear, by actual measurement, was eight and 
five-eights inches each way round. The family had 
never seen one to equal it in size. There was also 
where Schuyler street now is, an immemorial Iron pear 
tree, so tall that the crown of the tree was usually 
not picked. In the latter part of the eighteenth 
century and the first of the present, the fruit of the 
mulberry was much esteemed, there being few of the 
many small fruits now cultivated. The widow of the 
second Ebenezer realized in one season seventy dollars 
from the fruit sold from one large tree which stood in 
front of the house, beside using much herself for the 
entertainment of friends. It lived till after the marriao-e, 
in 1820, of the granddaughter, who remembers it well. 
This farm was also celebrated for its cherries, the trees 
having been blown down in the gale of 1815. The 
late George J. Parker had large fields of currants 
and gooseberries. There have been gathered in one 
year fifty barrels of gooseberries from bushes that he 
planted.^ 

Prior to the present century Judge John Lowell was a 
leading patron in the promotion of improved agriculture, 
and was president of the Massachusetts Society for Pro- 
moting Agriculture, for many years. He had an orchard, 
garden, and one of the first greenhouses, and contributed 
to the fund for establishing the Botanic Garden at Cam- 
bridge.^ This property was inherited by his son, Hon. 

^Letter of Miss Parker, granddaughter of Hon. Eben Seaver. 
2 Augustus Lowell's letter. 



32 THE HORTICULTURE OF 

John Lowell, who was also president for some years of 
the above-named society, and who stood at the head of the 
horticulturists and agriculturists in New England, and 
was styled by General Dearborn as the Columella of 
the Northern States. He presided at the preHm.inary 
meeting which eventuated in the establishment of the 
Massachusetts Horticultural Society. 

Mr. Lowell received scions of fruit trees from Mr. 
Kniffht, President of the Horticultural Society of Lon- 
don, and other eminent pomologists of Europe, and so 
liberally distributed them to his friends that his trees 
were often crippled in their growth. Mr. Lowell was 
also interested in the growth of exotics, and had in his 
collection some of the first orchideous plants of which 
we have any record. Among his plants sixty years 
ago he had a famous Strelitzia regiiia, which was then 
an object of great curiosity. No man in the early part 
of this century did more for the promotion of pomology 
in New England than Mr. Lowell, 

This estate was next inherited by the Hon. John A. 
Lowell, our esteemed and venerable citizen, who 
added largely to its glass structures, one of which was 
an Orchid house, to contain the plants bequeathed to 
him by John Wright Boott, some of which are now at 
the Botanic Garden, Cambridge, to which Mr. Lowell 
also gave a large part of his own Botanical library. 

In Roxbury was the garden of Gen. Henry A. S. 
Dearborn, who will ever be gratefully remembered as 
the first president of the Massachusetts Horticultural 
Society. He was also a great leader in the establish- 
ment of the Mount Auburn Cemetery, and the founder 
of Forest Hills Cemetery. Li his garden were raised 
the Dearborn Seedling pear and other fruits. He gave 
several hundred ornamental trees to be planted at 
Mount Auburn, and was personally occupied in the 



BOSTON AND VICINITY. ' 33 

laying out and adornment of both this and the Forest 
Hills Cemetery, and to him are the public more indebted 
primarily for the prestige and popularity of these in- 
stitutions than to any other man. His labors, addresses 
and communications for the press in regard to the 
science and practice of horticulture and rural embellish- 
ments, have given to his name an earthly immortality. 

Here also was the garden of the late Enoch Bartlett, 
one of the founders and first vice-presidents of the Mas- 
sachusetts Horticultural Society, where may now be 
seen the first Bartlett pear trees imported, a variety 
which is more popular than any other in our country. 
These grounds were previously owned by Captain 
Brewer, on which he had planted many fruit trees. 
When Mr. Bartlett purchased this place in 1820 he 
found two young trees which, on fruiting, proved to be 
the above, both of which still bear fruit, the largest 
being over forty inches in circumference three feet 
above the ground. This pear was afterwards ascer- 
tained to be the Williams Bon Chretien, an English 
variety.^ 

At Jamaica Plain were the garden and orchard of 
Captain John Prince, who was a successful cultivator of 
fruits and flowers. In 1825 he had eleven varieties of 
pears, four of plums, two of apricots, besides grapes and 
many varieties of apples. His greenhouse contained 
some of the early Camellias introduced into New England, 
among which was a Double White, purchased of Joseph 
Barrel], of Charlestown, when it was only a foot high, 
but a few hours previous to Mr. Barrell's death. 

One of the most noted places for the production of 
fruits and vegetables in the Roxbury district for the 
last century is the old Williams homestead, on Wal- 

^ Letter of Allen Putnam. 



34 THE HORTICULTURE OF 

nut avenue. This was the home of Aaron Davis 
WilUams, who succeeded his father, and who, during 
a long and useful life, contributed largely to the 
advancement of the horticulture of our vicinity. His 
father, John Davis Williams, was celebrated as a culti- 
vator at the close of the last century, as was probably 
his grandfather before him. From the orchards of this 
place for more than a hundred years have come to the 
Boston market many of the choicest fruits and vegeta- 
bles that it could boast of This spot is also memorable 
as the birthplace of the brothers John Davis Williams, 
and Moses Williams, so renowned as merchants of 
Boston, the latter now surviving at ninety years in 
a healthful old age, from whom the waiter has received 
the following letter : 

Boston, May 10, 1881. 
Hon. Marshall P. AVildek : Dear Sir, — Your favor of yesterday was re- 
ceived this morning. The house on Walnut avenue, in the Eoxbury District, 
where my brother, Aaron D. Williams was born, and where he died, was 
originally a Leanto, two stories on the front and one story on the rear. It was 
inherited by my father, John D. Williams, who was baptised John, married 
Hannah Davis, and after his marriage, petitioned the legislature, and took the 
name of John Davis Williams. My brother, the oldest child of my father, 
was baptised John, and after he became a man, he petitioned the legislature 
for leave to take the name of John Davis Williams, instead of John Williams, 
but as my father was a farmer and received but few letters, my brother never 
signed his name junior, as it appears to me now that it would have been 
proper for him to have done. However, my father received so few letters 
that no trouble ever arose on this account. My father, and I am almost cer- 
tain, my grandfather, were born, at any rate, they lived, on the same estate 
where my brother Aaron D. was born and where he died. There was no 
better cultivators of fruits and vegetables than my father, in his day, and my 
brother, Aaron, in his. My father left an estate in 1807, of $85,000, all ac- 
quired by uncommon ability, as a cultivator of fruit and vegetables. My 
brother Aaron made all to thrive under his care, but became too rich the 
latter part of his life to give to cultivation his exclusive attention. 
Very truly, your friend, 

MOSES WILLIAMS. 

Another fine old place in Eoxbury to be remembered 
was that of Rufus G. Amory, with its long avenues, 
entering from Washington street, bordered with noble 



BOSTON AND VICINITY. 35 

elms, which still live. He was much interested in orna- 
mental culture, importing trees and shrubs from Europe, 
and, it is said, received our common Barberry bush at a 
high price, while he was paying men at the rate of five 
shillings a day to dig them out of his own grounds. 
This estate, "Elm Hill," for a long time was the resi- 
dence of the late John D. W. Williams, but is now 
(1881) being laid out into streets and cut up into 
house lots. 

The Roxbury Russet apple was a great favorite a 
hundred years ago, and many orchards produced from 
five hundred to one thousand or more barrels a year. 
It is believed to have originated on the old farm of 
Ebenezer Davis, where some trees of the original 
orchard still remain. 

The farm of Samuel Ward, now belonging to the 
Brookline Land Company, w^as famous fifty years ago 
for its Roxbury Russet apples, often producing a thou- 
sand barrels a year ; and also for cherries, sending to 
market forty to fifty bushels daily in the season, and 
occasionally a four-ox team to Providence with seventy- 
five bushels of cherries. 

Among the orchards of early times were those of the 
Curtises, at Jamaica Plain. These have passed down 
to the present occupants in direct lineal descent, and 
from them immense crops of apples have been sent to 
the Boston market, in which the Curtises are the largest 
dealers and exporters of this fruit, shipping them by 
thousands upon thousands of barrels to foreign ports.^ 

Nor should we omit the ancestral home of our worthy 
citizen, Aaron Davis Weld, in West Roxbury, so cele- 
brated for its orchards in olden time, and for the 
last forty years for its famous apples and the renowned 
Weld farm cider and vinegar, where now are grown 

1 Charles F. Curtis's letter. 



36 THE nORTICULTUEE OF 

great crops of fruits in addition to two hundred tons 
of hay a year. 

In Roxbury, too, is the splendid estate of William 
Gray, Jr., on the borders of Dorchester, ex-president 
of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. This was 
formerly a portion of the celebrated estate of Col. Swan, 
long imprisoned in France for debt not of his own con- 
tracting, and one of those who helped throw thje tea 
into the harbor.^ Here Mr. Gray has offered the public 
fine illustrations of landscape gardening by the laying 
out of his beautiful grounds. From his conservatories 
and grounds our exhibitions have been constantly 
enriched with rare and costly plants, and his enterprise 
keep up with the progress of the age, having for the 
last three years won the $150 Silver Cup for his roses. 

Roxbury, from the early part of this century, was 
distinguished for its greenhouses. We have alluded to 
the Lowells and others reaching back to that time. 
Among those of the present century was that of John 
Lemist, who was lost on the ill-fated steamboat Lex- 
ington on the route from Boston to Providence in 1840. 
This place was formerly the residence of Judge 
Auchmuty. He being a tory his property was con- 
fiscated. Gov. Increase Sumner was afterwards the 
owner, then Beza Tucker, and in 1824 it passed to Mr. 
Lemisi* His greenhouses and grapery, under the care 
of a Scotch gardener, John R. Russell, became quite 
noted. His collection of plants, especially camellias, 
gardenias and roses, was considered as remarkable, 
and he often obtained one dollar or more for a cut 
fiower of the Double White Camellia. 

The gardens and nurseries of Samuel Walker, fifth 
president of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, 

^ Hon. Thomas C. Amory's letter. 

* See Boston Memorial, Vol. II , p. 343. 



BOSTON AND VICINITY. 37 

were situated in Roxbury, opposite the estate of Gov. 
Eiistis. Mr. Walker was prominent in his efforts to 
advance horticulture, and made his home in a garden. 
He was a zealous and experienced cultivator of plants 
and fruit trees. He bestowed great attention on the 
cultivation of the dahlia, tulip and pansy. He annually 
gave public exhibitions of the tulip under a canvas 
tent erected for the purpose, and had costly varieties, 
such as Louis XVI. and others, valued at £10 to £15 
for a single bulb. His nurseries were, for many years, 
noted for their excellence, and his fruits on exhibition 
were of the first class, among which was the Mount 
Vernon pear, which he had produced from seed. 

On the borders of Jamaica Pond is the garden of 
Francis Parkman, LL. D., ex-president of the Horticul- 
tural Society, who has become almost as widely known 
for his experience in hybridizing plants as for his his- 
torical writings. By the process of hybridizing he 
obtained the Lilium Parkmcmii, for the stock of which 
a florist in London gave him one thousand dollars. 

Roxbury has been renowned for the many varieties 
of fruits which have been originated within her borders. 
Of these may be named the flimous Roxbury Russet, 
Williams' Favorite, and Seaver Sweet apples; the 
Dearborn's Seedling, Lewis, Merriam, Dana's Hovey, 
and Mount Vernon pears. 

In Milton are numerous fine estates which, under 
modern horticultural skill, are worthy of remembrance, 
such as the summer residences of Henry P. Kidder, 
Francis Peabody, Robert B. and John M. Forbes, Mrs. 
F. Cunningham, Miss Russell, and John W. Brooks, 
whose pear orchard contains six hundred trees of the 
Beurre d'Anjou, generally considered "the best." 
Nor would we omit the residence of Col. Henry S. 
Russell, in olden time of Francis Amory, novv the 



38 THE HOKTICULTUKE OF 

"Home Farm," with its world-renowned "Smuggler" 
breed of horses, its extensive avenues of old oaks, wal- 
nuts, elms, maples and pines, its broad landscape and 
ornamental grounds. 

The town of Brookline has been celebrated, from an 
early date for the elegant residences of our wealthy 
merchants and opulent citizens, and for its gardens, 
orchards, and ornamental grounds. " Brookline was, for 
a long time, preeminent in the little cordon of towns 
which have so long constituted the exquisite envi- 
rons of Boston, embossing it with rich and varied mar- 
gins of lawn and lake and meadow and wooded hillside, 
and encircling its old "plain neck," as Wood called 
it in his "New England's Prospect," with an unfading 
wreath of bloom and verdure.^ Here were the homes 
of the Amorys, the Aspinwalls, the Perkinses, SuUi- 
vans, Sargents, Lees, Gardners, Tappans, of Gen. Theo- 
dore Lyman, Benjamin Guild, Nathaniel IngersoU Bow- 
ditch, John E. Thayer, and others, who have been 
patrons of horticultural improvement ; and although 
the citizens of Brookline protested in 1773 against 
the introduction of the leaves of the Tea plant without 
their consent, they have been proverbially friends of 
rural taste and the adornment of their residences with 
other beautiful trees and plants. 

In the very early part of this century the gardens 
and greenhouses of Col. Thomas Handasyd Perkins 
were particularly distinguished. Col. Perkins was one 
of the most eminent merchants of our city, and his 
public benefactions, especially in founding the Institu- 
tion for the Blind, will ever be gratefully remembered. 
He and his brother, Samuel G. Perkins, inherited a love 
for fruits and flowers from their grandmother, Mrs. Ed- 

1 Mr. Winthrop's Address at the dedication of the new Toivn Hall of 
Brookline. 



BOSTON AND VICINITY. 39 

mund Perkins, who was Edna Frothingham, of Charles- 
town. Col. Perkins' residence in France and other for- 
eign lands, where he had seen fine fruits and flowers, 
stimulated his natural taste, and induced him to purchase 
this estate in 1800, when he commenced the building of 
his house, the laying out of his grounds, and the erec- 
tion of greenhouses and glass structures for the cultiva- 
tion of fruits and flowers, and until the establishment 
of the magnificent conservatories and fruit houses of 
his nephew, John Perkins Cushing, at Watertown (now 
the residence of Samuel R. Payson, which still exists 
in the highest state of improvement), his place was 
considered the most advanced in horticultural science 
of any in New England. For fifty years Col. Perkins' 
estate was kept in the best manner by experienced for- 
eign gardeners, and at an expense of more than ten 
thousand dollars annuall}^ He frequently received 
trees and plants from Europe, the products of which 
were prominent at the exhibitions of the Massachusetts 
Horticultural Society. In 1840 he introduced the Vic- 
toria Hamburg, West's St. Peter's, and Cannon Hall 
Muscat grape vines, which were presented to him by 
Sir Joseph Paxton, gardener to the Duke of Devon- 
shire. Col. P. gave a description of the conservatory 
of the Duke : 275 feet long by 130 wide, and 65 feet 
high, costing two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, 
or fifty thousand pounds sterling. 

Next to be named were the garden and fruit houses 
of Samuel G. Perkins, which were presented to him 
by his brother, Col. Perkins. They were selected on 
account of being situated between the Colonel's and 
James Perkins' beautiful estate at Pine Bank, an elder 
brother, and where now resides his grandson, E. N. 
Perkins, as a favorable location for Samuel to indulge 
his natural taste, and the skill which he had acquired 



40 THE HORTICULTURE OF 

in horticultural science by residing in foreign lands, 
and by his acquaintance with experienced cultiva- 
tors of both fruits and flowers. His fruit houses were 
two hundred feet in length, in and around which were 
grown the choicest varieties of grapes, peaches and 
plums; there the Golden Nectarine was produced from 
the stone planted by him. Mr. Perkins was the intro- 
ducer of the Duchesse d'Angouleme pear, the Franconia 
raspberry, and other fruits from France. He attended 
personally to the pruning and cultivation of his trees, 
and his success was greater than that of his brother. 
Mr. Samuel G. Perkins usually wore a button-hole 
bouquet in the lappel of his coat, and was fond of sur- 
prising his brother with superior fruits. One day he 
came with a basket of gorgeous grapes, peaches and 
apricots, and said: "Brother Tom, I know you love 
fine fruit, and fearing you do not often get it, I have 
brought you something worth having." "Thank you, 
Brother Sara, I try to be contented with what I have, 
and I certainly should be if you were not always burst- 
ing in and giving me something that makes me envy 
you."^ 

In Brookline is the old Aspinwall estate. This was the 
birthplace of our beloved citizen, the late Col. Thomas 
Aspinwall, where still remains the same old mansion* 
house in which he and his father. Dr. William Aspinwall, 
were born. The " Aspinwall House " was built by Peter 
Aspinwall in 1660, is now owned (1880) by Hon. 
William Aspinwall, and has never been out of the 
possession of descendants of the same name. Here 
were planted by Dr. William Aspinwall extensive 
orchards of Baldwin and Roxbury Russet apples, and 
other fruits. Some few trees are still remaining near 

1 Letter of Augustus T. Perkins. 

* See Boston Memorial, Vol. I., p. 221, 



BOSTON AND VICINITY. 41 

the old house. So plenty were peaches that the pigs 
were turned into the orchard to eat up the surplus, and 
this ground is still called the " old peach orchard." On 
a portion of the Aspinwall estate, Mr. Augustus Aspin- 
wall, a distinguished merchant and horticulturist, one 
of the first board of counsellors of the Massachusetts 
Horticultural Society, devoted a part of his time to 
horticultural pursuits, erecting two extensive graperies. 
He was eminently successful as a cultivator of the rose 
of which he made frequent exhibitions. The old Aspin- 
wall Elm, formerly so renowned, which stood at the 
corner of the old house, was destroyed by the gale of 
September, 1863. Dr. George B. Emerson; in his 
report on the trees and shrubs of Massachusetts in the 
edition of 1846, says : "The Aspinwall Ehn in Brookline, 
standino; near the ancient house belono-ino: to that 
family, and which was known to be 181 years old in 
1837, then measured 26 feet 5 inches at the ground, 
or as near to it as the roots would allow us to measure, 
and 16 feet 8 inches at five feet. The branches 
extended 104 feet from southeast to northwest, and 95 
from northeast to southwest," Some persons believe 
that this old elm was coeval in age with the purchase 
by Peter Aspinwall in 1650. The Aspinwall estate is 
now the property of the Aspinwall Land Co.^ 

The most extensive and elegant estate in Brookline 
is that of the venerable Ignatius Sargent, whose success 
in grape culture forty years ago was so great that he ex- 
hibited bunches of the Black Hamburg grape weighing 
from four to six pounds. On these grounds is the 
beautiful cottage of his son. Professor Charles S. Sargent, 
on the site of the residence of the late Thomas Lee, 
the donor to the city of the Lethean statue on the 

1 Letter of Hon. Wm. Aspinwall. 



42 THE HORTICULTURE OF 

Boston Public Garden, and of the statue of Hamilton 
on Commonwealth Avenue, and who was thirty years 
ago much interested in the growth of rhododendrons, 
azaleas and other plants. Under the supervision of 
Professor Sargent, this place, with its magnificent land- 
scape, its conservatories of plants, and its extensive 
collection of conifers, rhododendrons and azaleas, is 
every year thrown open to the public. With its exten- 
sive and rare collection of native and foreign trees and 
shrubs, and its wide and grand embrace of one hundred 
acres in extent, this estate is one of great interest for 
the study of landscape and ornamental culture. 

General Lyman, to whom we have alluded, expended 
large sums of money in the erection of his house in 
1842, of which Richard Upjohn was the architect. He 
improved the premises by grading the lawn, planting 
trees, and building graperies, all of which have been 
further improved by his worthy son, Col. Theodore, 
who still resides there, and whose son of the same 
name, a promising lad, we hope will live to per- 
petuate the memory of Theodore Lyman. Here 
remain some of the grand old trees planted by the 
father of our venerable citizen, Jonathan Mason, who 
still lives at the advanced age of nearly ninety years. 
General Lyman was a patron of horticulture, agricul- 
ture, and moral reform.* He gave over seventy 
thousand dollars to found the State Reform School at 
Westborough ; ten thousand dollars to the Farm School, 
in Boston Harbor, and ten thousand dollars to the Massa- 
chusetts Horticultural Society. 

In Brookline, also, is the elegant villa, with its splen- 
did avenues and grounds, of the late John Eliot Thayer, 
left by him to Mrs. Thayer, now Mrs. Robert C. Win- 

* See Mr. Bugbee's chapter in Boston Memorial, Vol. III. 



BOSTON AND VICINITY. 43 

throp, where a most generous hospitality, and cordial 
welcome are extended to the numerous friends of Mr. 
and Mrs. Winthrop, both of our own and foreign lands. 

Here, also, are the fine estate and extensive glass 
structures of John Lowell Gardner, to whom we have 
alluded already, by whose liberality for a long 
course of years the exhibitions of the Massachusetts 
Horticultural Society have been graced and enriched 
by elegant plants and products from the hands of his 
experienced gardener, Mr. Atkinson. Mr. Gardner's 
mother was sister to the Hon. John Lowell^ and he in- 
herits the same taste for rural life and culture for which 
Mr. Lowell was so renowned. His father, as we have 
seen, also possessed like tastes, when they resided in 
Summer street, where foreign grapes and pears were 
grown in open air. The Saint Germain pear was very 
large ; and of the Brown Beurre, Mr. Gardner says : " I 
have never seen finer specimens." 

No doubt good gardens were early made at Muddy 
Brook Avhen it was a part of Boston. The elegant 
estate of the Hon. Amos A. Lawrence at Longwood, 
was once the farm of Judge Sewall, on which there 
are relics of pear culture. One of the trees, a very large 
one, was destroyed by a gale several years ago. The 
largest which remains, though with lessened propor- 
tions, now measures, at six inches above the ground, 
nine feet two inches in circumference. Thirty years 
ago it bore what is called the Button pear, but has 
since been regrafted with another variety. Judge 
Sewall, in his diary between 1680 and 1700, mentions 
grafting trees at his house in Boston with " Button 
pears." The grafts were probably taken from this tree.^ 
Hon. William Amory has a lovely place at Longwood. 

1 Hon. Amos A. Lawrence's letter. 



44 THE nOKTICULTUEE OF 

Cambridge was celebrated for her gardens and the 
ornamental culture of her grounds, even before the 
commencement of this present century. " At the close 
of the Revolution Andrew Cragie purchased the Wash- 
ington headquarters, now the residence of the poet 
Longfellow, enlarged the house, and laid out the 
grounds in the taste of that period. The stream sur- 
rounding a small island, with a few pine trees upon it, 
may still be seen. On the western side of the man- 
sion the tall hedges and clumps of lilacs are all that 
remain of this early garden. 

Mr. Cragie had a greenhouse on the grounds where 
the dormitory of the Episcopal Seminary now stands. 
This structure was burnt about 1840. He also had an ice 
house, an almost unknown luxury?- in those days. Some 
people thought a judgment would befall one who would 
thus attempt to thwart the designs of Providence by 
raising flowers under glass in winter, and keeping ice 
under ground to cool the heat of summer, which 
now seems to have been the forermmers of two great 
institutions in Cambridge, — ice in summer, and flow- 
ers in winter. 

Thomas Brattle, born in Cambridge in 1742, became 
a royalist refugee in 1775, and was banished by the 
act of 1778. But in 1784 he returned to Cambridge, 
his property being restored to him, took possession of 
his patrimony, the house which now bears his name, 
next to the University Press, began to improve his 
grounds according to the taste of a century ago, and 
from that time until his death, in 1801, his garden, 
possessing a profusion of fruits and flowers, was the 
boast of Cambridge. His house was built by his father 
in 1742, when was planted, probably, the square of 
English lindens which so long formed a green canopy 
around it, but which have all fallen by the tooth of 



BOSTON AND VICINITY. 45 

time, the last one disappearing about fifteen years ago. 
Mr. Brattle, with a native taste for horticulture, and his 
observation acquired in -foreign lands, no doubt laid 
out his grounds in the latest styles of Europe, having 
a spring of pure water, a marble grotto, a pond for 
gold fish, and a parterre for aquatic plants on a lower 
level, where the University Press stands. His lawn 
was so velvet-like that it was said it could only be 
improved by combing it with a fine-tooth comb. 

The most remarkable fruit garden in Cambridge dur- 
ing the last century was that of Bosenger Foster, who 
lived on the estate occupied by the late venerable and 
worthy Samuel Batchelder, who died a few years ago at 
the age of ninety-two. [This estate is now occupied 
by Mr. Thomas P. James, who married the daughter 
of Mr. Batchelder.] The garden is still partially 
enclosed by a brick w\all, which has been a land- 
mark on Brattle street for the last one hundred and 
fifty years. Here was probably the first extensive col- 
lection of pear trees in a region now famous for its 
fine fruits. Mr. Foster imported the most celebrated 
French pears, some trees of which attained great size ; 
a few of them, Avith a most beautiful black mulberry 
tree, ornament the place, and still bear fruit. Here 
are still large Hawthorn trees, which it is believed 
were planted by the Vassalls in 1730, and which still 
produce a profusion of white blossoms, and are a 
harbor for winter birds who feed on the ripe haws. 

Here, near by, is the historic Washington elm, 
much shorn of its glory, believed to be one of 
a row of trees planted about two hundred 3^ears ago. 
Under it Washington took command of the Amer- 
ican army, and at that time it must have attained 
its first century. Here, too, is the old Whitefield elm, 
of about the same size, which was cut down some ten 



46 THE HORTICULTURE OF 

or twenty years ago, and under which Whitefield 
preached in 1740, when he was not allowed to enter 
any pulpit in Cambridge. Only one of this row 
survives.^ 

Cambridge has been renowned for the culture of 
fruits, especially of the pear and plum, as the exhibi- 
tions of the last fifty years have shown. Here were 
the experimental grounds and nurseries of Samuel 
Pond, Henry Vandine, and numerous gardens of fruit 
trees. 

Cambridge has possessed the most extensive nurseries 
and plant-houses of any place in New England. Here 
Mr. P. B. Hovey, with his brother, Charles M. Hovey, 
established more than forty years ago, upon a piece of 
wild woodland, the famous nursery of Hovey & Co., for 
the sale of trees and plants, and here under the super- 
vision and direction of the latter gentleman, associated 
with their sons in the profession, he has supervised 
and carried on the raising and testing of fruits, the 
raising of seeds, and the hybridization and acquisition of 
plants which have given hnn and his brother a renowned 
reputation as horticulturists both at home and in foreign 
lands. Mr. Hovey's love of nature and his ambitious 
and enterprising disposition have inspired him to prove 
under his own personal inspection every thing in the 
way of horticulture that seemed desirable. In the 
department of Pomology there have been fruited and 
proved on these grounds more than fifteen hundred 
varieties of fiuits, and from them there have been ex- 
hibited on a single occasion three hundred varieties of 
pears. Here were raised by the crossing of the straw- 
berry the Boston Pine and Hovey's Seedling strawberry, 
the last named being still, after almost fifty years of 
trial, one of our finest varieties in cultivation. 

1 Letter of Mrs. Isabella James. 



BOSTON AND VICINITY. 47 

The collection of plants contains grand old speci- 
mens, which are the result of many years of patience 
and toil. Some of the Chinese and other palms are 
fifty years old and twelve feet high. Here was early 
commenced the hybridization of plants, by which 
have been produced some of the most remarkable 
Camellias our country can boast of : — such as Mrs. Anne 
Marie Hovey, Charles M. Hovey, Charles H. Hovey, 
and others, for some of which they received the gold 
medal of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, and 
also a first class certificate by the London Horticultural 
Society. Many of these Mr. C. M. Hovey exhibited in 
London, in person. The Camellia house of Hovey & 
Co. is one hundred feet long, forty feet wide and twenty- 
five feet high, and it contains some of the largest 
Camellias in the country, all planted in the ground. 
Here are twenty other houses for the growth of plants. 

The collection of Hovey & Co. contains hundreds of 
species and varieties of ornamental trees and shrubs, 
among which are remarkable specimens of elegant and 
curious trees worthy of the long life which it has taken 
to produce them. Mr. C. M. Hovey, for four years pres- 
ident of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, was 
the editor of the Magazine of Horticulture for thirty- 
four years, — the whole period of its existence. These 
volumes contain a vast amount of horticultural and 
kindred matter, and as books of reference are of very 
great value to all lovers of the art. Triumphing over 
all obstacles, and working with a zeal that never tires, 
he still lives to promote the great cause to which he 
has devoted his life. 

The city of Newton, with her eight villages, and 
with a numerous population of active business 
people has made, perhaps, as great advances in horti- 
cultural science, as any other area of the same size 



48 THE HORTICULTURE OP 

around Boston. Here are numerous beautiful resi- 
dences, with highly cultivated gardens, orchards, and 
well kept grounds; and just beyond, in Natick, where 
the Apostle Eliot planted his apple trees, are cultivators 
of the rose, whose sales amount to thousands of dollars 
annually. 

Newton and Brighton have been noted for their cul- 
tivation of fruits, trees and plants for nearly a hundred 
years. The first nursery of any considerable note in 
New England was commenced by John Kenrick, of New- 
ton, in 1790, by the raising of peach trees from the 
stone, to which he added in a few years the apple, cheny, 
and other fruit trees. In 1797 he commenced a nursery 
of ornamental trees, two acres of which were planted 
with the Lombardy poplar, then a most esteemed but 
now despised tree. His nurseries became the most ex- 
tensive in New England. In 1823 Mr. Kenrick took his 
elder son, William, into partnership, and continued the 
business until his decease in 1833. Peaches and cur- 
rants were here extensively cultivated, and there were 
manufactured in 1826 three thousand and six hundred 
gallons of currant wine. William Kenrick's nursery at 
Nonantum HiU in Newton, established in 1823, contin- 
ued for twenty-seven years, and for a part of this time 
he imported and sold more fruit trees than any other 
nurseryman in New England. John A. Kenrick, brother 
of William, also pursued the nursery business on the old 
estate until his death in 1870.^ William Kenrick was one 
of the founders of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, 
a zealous, enterprising citizen, and the author of the "New 
American Orchardist," and a public writer. He entered 
largely into the Morus Multicaulis speculation, propa- 
gating hundreds of thousands of this tree both on his 

I History of the Mass. Hort. Soc, pp. 33, 34. 



BOSTOlSr AND VICINITY. 49 

own grounds and other land which he had taken up in 
the South. 

James Hyde established a small nurseiy of fruit trees 
about the year 1800, when he was eighteen years old, 
This was enlarged from time to time, and in 1842 
our respected friend, James F. C. Hyde, since presi- 
dent of the Massachusetts Horticultural Societj'^, became 
a partner with his father, and for many years carried on 
the business with success. To this day he possesses the 
same love of rural life and interest in fruits and flowers, 
especially in testing by personal experience the new 
varieties that come to his notice, and writing for the 
press. 

In Brighton there was a nursery established in 1816, 
by Jonathan Winship, also a founder of the Massachu- 
setts Horticultural Society. In 1826 he associated with 
him his brother Francis, and carried on the general 
nursery business on an extensive scale for many years. 
They a' so had greenhouses for the propagation of plants 
being among the earliest growers of ornamental trees 
and plants for sale. They furnished the city of Boston 
largely for planting its Common and streets ; also, other 
cities and many of the cemeteries, having at that time, 
the largest collection of such in this section of the 
country, and were among the first to send cut flowers 
to the Boston markets for sale. To their collection 
Sir Admiral Isaac Coffin made valuable donations which 
he collected in Europe.^ 

The nursery and plant business was in later years 
carried on in Brighton by Joseph Breck, and James 
L. L. F. Warren, and now by William C. Strong and 
Charles H. B. Breck and Sons. Forty years since Mr. 
Warren was largely interested in the cultivation of 

1 Letter of Lyman F. Winship. Also, chapter in Boston Memorial on 
Brighton, Vol. III. 



50 THE HOETICULTURE OP 

ornamental and greenhouse plants, and had public 
exhibitions of the tulip and other bulbous plants. Having 
possessed himself of the stock of the Camellias Wilderi, 
and Mrs. Ahhy Wilder, he propagated them largely and 
went to Europe with them, where he made considera- 
ble sales. Mr. Warren is now in California, and has 
been editor of the " California Farmer " for more than 
thirty years. 

Joseph Breck, afterwards president, and one of the 
original members of the Massachusetts Horticultural 
Society, had grounds in Brighton for the cultivation of • 
ornamental plants and the production of seeds, and his 
name is still continued in the firm of Joseph Breck and 
Sons, the oldest seed house in New England, it having 
existed more than fifty years, succeeding that of John B. 
Russell, to whom we shall allude hereafter. Mr. Breck 
was one of the foremost promoters of the culture of 
fruits and flowers, and wrote frequently for the press. 
He was proprietor and for some years the editor of the 
" Horticultural Register." and other works. His Book 
of Flowers has passed through many editions, and has 
a very wide circulation. 

The nurseries and plant-houses of William C. Strong, 
ex-president of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, 
are worthy of special notice for the enterprise and intelli- 
gence of their proprietor. Here, under one continuous 
roof of glass of 18,000 square feet, is an enclosure where 
plants are grown as in the open ground ; where immense 
quantities of the rose and other flowers are daily cut for 
the. market. The estate of Mr. Strong was once owned 
by Jonathan Araory, father of Hon. Thomas C. Amory, 
and about forty years ago was possessed by Horace 
Gray, of whom we have spoken in connection with the 
establishment of the Public Garden, in Boston. He 
erected on these grounds the largest grape-houses then 



BOSTON AND VICINITY. 51 

known in the United States, in which were grown ex- 
tensively numerous varieties of foreign grapes. For the 
testing of these under glass in cold houses, Mr. Gray 
erected a hirge curvilinear-roof house, two hundred 
feet long by twenty-four wide. This was such a great 
success that he built two more of the same dimensions. 

In addition to these, Brighton, in the early part of 
this century, was the residence of several celebrated 
agriculturists and horticulturists. Here were the 
orchards of Gorham Parsons, who also had others at 
Byfield; of S. W. Pomroy, Mr. Faneuil, Samuel Brooks, 
and others; and here for many years were held the 
exhibitions of the Massachusetts Society for Promoting 
Agriculture, with great success, under the patronage 
and supervision of such leaders as John Lowell, John 
Welles, Peter C. Brooks, Gen. Dearborn, Josiah Quincy, 
John Prince, and the gentlemen above named. 

There is a splendid illustration of the wonderful 
progress of horticultural improvement and refined taste 
that cannot be omitted, and may, without detraction 
from any other, be considered as standing at the 
head of all others in New England, if not in our 
country. This is in Wellesley, the estate of Mr. H. 
Hollis Hunnewell, comprising in all, w^ith its fields and 
forests, about five hundred acres, on which he com- 
menced his operations about thirty years ago. The 
ornamental part contains about forty acres from which 
he cleared the wild growth of scrub oaks, piitch pines, 
and other worthless trees and shrubs before he com- 
menced work upon it. He then laid out his splendid 
avenues and plots, and commenced the planting of 
his most interesting and instructive collection of hardy 
trees and plants, not only of our own countrj^, but of 
all such, from California, Japan, and other lands, that 
would endure our climate. His collection of rhododen- 



52 THE HORTICULTURE OF 

(Irons and azaleas, the largest in our country, embraces 
many thousands of plants, to which he is constantly 
adding everything new and rare, demonstrating, 
beyond doubt, that a very large number of varieties 
grown in Europe may be successfully cultivated in 
our climate. Of such as are somewhat tender he has 
the choicest varieties, which he stores in cool pits in 
the winter, planting them out in the spring under an 
immense canvass tent of seven thousand square feet, 
and these, with the whole of his magnificent estate, 
he opens to the public once a week gratuitously. 
A few years since he made, in the name of the Massa- 
chusetts Horticultural Society, an exhibition of hun- 
dreds of these under an immense tent on Boston 
Common. The exhibition lasted for several weeks, 
and was visited by throngs of gratified spectators, and 
the income from it was generously given to constitute 
a fund for the Society, encouraging the growth of 
these jDlants. The avenues to this estate are planted 
on either side Avith most beautiful pines, spruces, 
beeches, maples, magnolias, and other trees intermixed 
here and there with the rarest and costliest conifers, 
rhododendrons, azaleas, and other flowering shrubs, all 
of which have been grown up within the last thirty 
years. Its meandering walks also planted on either 
side with the rarest and newest conifer and other 
evergreens ; its various vistas, giving here and there 
a 'delightful view through different openings, are most 
charming. The magnificent velvet lawn in front of 
his house, the lovely Lake Waban in the rear, the 
Italian garden, the parapets, ballustrades, statues and 
vases, with the clipped trees of various forms, leads 
one to suppose, as Mr. Sargent says, " that Ave are on 
the Lake of Como." Here are fruit and vegetable 
gardens enclosed wdth ornamental hedges ; a conserva- 



BOSTON AND VICINITY. 53 

iory attached to the house, six plant houses, and six 
fruit houses, and numerous and varied illustrations of 
ornamental beds of flowers. The whole, for twenty- 
seven years, has been under the charge of Mr. F. L. 
Harris, his gardener, and constitutes a place unsur- 
passed in this country for the acquisition of everything 
new or old in horticulture that pleases the eye, charms 
the senses, or gratifies the taste, affording also, with 
the contributions and benefactions of Mr. Hunnewell 
to the Horticultural Society, a noble illustration of his 
love of the objects which he has sought to promote. 

Here, in Wellesley, is the Wellesley Female Col- 
lege, founded mainly by the munificence of Henry F. 
Durant, where is taught, as a branch of education, the 
science of botanv and the raising of plants from seeds, 
and whose splendid avenues and ornamental grounds 
and collection of plants are happy illustrations of mod- 
ern progress in horticulture. 

Nor must we omit some record of the famous Rido:e 
Hill Farm of William E. Baker, containing eight hun- 
dred and fifty acres, with its ten miles of avenues, its 
artificial lake, one and a half miles in circumference, 
its grotto under ground, one-fourth of a mile in length, 
several greenhouses, numerous illustrations of the 
artistic bedding of plants under the care of his gar- 
dener, Mr. Greaves, and to which we may add the 
grand hotel of two hundred and fifty rooms. 

And just across the river, opposite Mr. Hunnewell's, 
is the fine country seat of Benjamin Pierce Cheney, 
whose love of horticulture and the fine arts induced 
him to place the grand statue of Ceres, which crowns 
the temple of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. 
Mr. Hunnewell and Mr. Charles O. Whitmore, at the 
same time, also presenting the statues of Flora and 
Pomona, which adorn the corners of this building. 



54 THE nORTICULTUEE OF 

AVatertown and Waltham have been celebrated for 
the residences of wealthy merchants and citizens, as 
far back as the last century. Belmont, at Water- 
town, formerly the residence of John Perkins Gushing, 
now the home of Samuel R. Pa3^son, has been, and is 
still, one of the most celebrated places in New England 
if not in the United States, for its horticultural taste 
and improvement, having been kept up for more than 
half a century in the most improved manner. Here, 
for the last fifteen years, Mr. Payson has indulged his 
natural taste in the pleasures of rural life, by the 
acquisition and cultivation of the most beautiful fruits 
and flowers of the age. This estate, some sixty years 
ago, was the residence of Eben Preble, an old merchant 
of Boston, and brother of Commodore Preble. He built 
the brick walls still enclosing the grounds in which the 
present conservatories and other glass structures are 
located. Mr. Preble, in 1805, imported into Boston 
one hundred and fifty varieties of fruit trees, and so 
great has been the improvement in our fruits that 
only two of the varieties are now considered valuable. 
This estate passed to Nathaniel Amory, who married 
the daughter of Mr. Preble ; thence to R. D. Shephard 
about 1830, in a few years to Mr. Gushing, and, after 
his death, about 1860, to Mr. Payson. 

Mr. Gushing was a great lover of the works of nature, 
and, with lavish expenditures of wealth, he improved 
this estate in the highest sense of the word, by the lay- 
ing out of the grounds and by the erection of numerous 
plant and fruit houses. He contributed to the exhibi- 
tions of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, and he 
opened his grounds once a week to the public in 
the summer season, making his place the most famous 
in his day for horticultural progress in New England. 

The present estate of Mr. Payson embraces about 



BOSTON AND VICINITY. 55 

two hundred acres, which, varied with its fine avenues 
bordered with old oak, walnut, and tulip trees (one 
of the last is eighty feet in height), and ornamental 
trees, rhododendrons, azaleas, and other shrubs, make 
it one of great interest. Here is a large conservatory, 
sixty feet wide, with fourteen other houses, devoted to 
the cultivation of certain classes of plants, fruits, and 
vegetables. Among these houses may be named a 
large greenhouse, two pelargonium, two orchid, one 
palm, one azalea, with several other houses devoted 
to grapes, peaches, nectarines, figs, and vegetables. 

The lawn on the south of the house is magnificent, 
containing about twenty acres, on and around which 
are some of the finest purple beeches in the land. On 
these premises are several gnarled old oaks, and a 
deciduous cypress of great age, and also a park well 
stocked with deer. 

Opposite Mr. Payson's is the handsome old place of 
William Pratt, which has for a long course of years 
been kept in a fine condition by his heirs, under the 
supervision of his son, George W. Pratt, one of the 
early vice-presidents of the Massachusetts Horticultural 
Society, and since his death by Miss Mary Pratt, who 
still, at an advanced age, preserves its former reputation 
with good taste and enterprise. The conservatory of 
choice plants, the graperies, peach house, the orchard 
and garden, are perpetuated from year to year in excel- 
lent order. 

Near by is the elegant villa and estate of the 
late Alvin Adams, renowned for his enterprise and suc- 
cess as the founder of the great Adams Express Com- 
pany. His extensive lawns and ornamental grounds, 
together with his valuable picture gallery, have made 
this place one of the most attractive in the vicinity of 



56 THE HORTICULTUKE OF 

Boston, where the generous hospitality of its proprietor 
was abundantly dispensed, as it is now by his heirs. 

The orchards and gardens on this side of our city 
were noted a long time ago for their extent, and the 
excellence of their fruit. Here was the home of Josiah 
Stickney, ex-president of the Massachusetts Horticul- 
tural Society, where his heirs still reside. Although a 
merchant in active business, he found time to plant an 
extensive pear orchard and a garden, from which, under 
his personal carC, he brought forth some of the finest 
fruits that have been on exhibition. Before his removal 
from Boston, his love of flowers led him to establish a 
small garden on Tremont street, north of the Masonic 
Temple, where, forty years ago, he cultivated the dahlia 
extensively, [frequently carrying off .prizes for the excel- 
lence of his specimens. Desirous of promoting the cause 
of horticulture, he made a bequest of his estate at Water- 
town to the Massachusetts Horticultural Society for an 
experimental garden, but afterwards revoked this gift 
and o;ave the sum of twelve thousand dollars to the soci- 
ety, the income of which was to be devoted for thirty 
years for the purchase of books for its library, then to 
be transferred to the Lawrence Scientific School at 
Cambridge. 

Col. Leonard Stone was a prominent cultivator in 
his day, and largely interested in the promotion of 
both agriculture and horticulture. He was a member of 
the Massachusetts Agricultural Club, and had frequent 
intercourse with Mr. Cushing, both as a friend and an 
adviser. 

In Waltham, was the splendid estate of Gov. 
Christopher Gore, which was considered in former times 
as among the most elegant in our vicinity. The Gov- 
ernor, while residing in England as commissioner for the 
adjustment of claims under the Jay treaty, evidently 



BOSTON AND VICINITY. 57 

imbibed a taste for the life of a country gentleman, and 
acquired a knowledge of the then accepted style of build- 
ing and landscape gardening ; his house and grounds 
were arranged strictly on an English model. The 
estate comprised several hundred acres, in the middle 
of which was w^hat was called the " Home Field," where 
stood the mansion, the plan of which was considered 
most admirable and aristocratic, and in the most ap- 
proved style. The drawing room was furnished in the 
gay and graceful fashion of Louis XVI. ; the other rooms 
with substantial rich mahoganj^ much of it of the old 
ante-revolutionary type, the whole being complete and 
elegant. A straight avenue, shaded by double rows of 
trees, conducted the visitor to this stately abode ; 
shady walks radiated from the house to the east and west, 
secluding it upon all sides except one opening that 
permitted a view of the river a half mile across the 
lawn and the fields beyond it. The trees which bor- 
dered the avenues and walks and ornamented the 
grounds were tastefully grouped, occasionally convert- 
ing the walks into Gothic aisles, one of which formed a 
vista from the east window of the library. The tradi- 
tion is that the Governor and Mrs. Gore planted many 
of these trees with their own hands. The Governor 
was fond of agricultural pursuits and was an ardent 
amateur farmer, having in addition to his fruit, flower 
and vegetable garden, extensive ifields under cultiva- 
tion, and a large group of barns and farm buildings. 
From this elegant mansion might be seen the Governor 
taking an airing in his orange-colored coach, with 
coachman, footman, and outriders all in livery, and with 
a stateliness quite in keeping with his fine place. ^ 
This place, on the death of Gov. Gore, passed into 

^ Letter of Col. Henry Lee. 



58 THE HORTICULTURE OF 

the hands of WilHam Payne, then to Gen. Theodore Ly- 
man, and on the latter's removal to Brookline, to Copley 
Greene. Now it is a place distinguished for numerous 
glass structures, for the growth of fruits, flowers, and 
vegetables, and for the excellent condition in which its 
grounds and their appurtenances are kept by its present 
owner, Mr. T. W. Walker. Waltham was much devel- 
oped by the enterprise of Messrs. Lowell and Patrick 
Jackson ; there, also, Dr. James Jackson had a lovely 
place, and Judge Jackson for a few years held the Gore 
place by lease. 

Another place is especially worthy of notice in Wal- 
tham. "'Lyman Place," the home of Theodore Lyman, 
one of Boston's renowned merchants, where he and his 
eldest son, George W. Lyman, lived from 1795 until 
their deaths, — the latter having died Sep. 24, 1880? 
aged 93 years, 10 months. This estate was bought in 
1793, and the mansion house erected- in 1795. The 
first greenhouse was built about 1800, and divided into 
two parts, in which were raised pineapples, bananas, 
and other tropical fruits, and among the ornamental 
plants the yellow Mimosa (Acacia) which was then 
considered very elegant. Mr. Lyman brought over a 
celebrated English gardener by the name of Bell. He 
commenced laying out and grading the grounds, which 
took several seasons to finish, but when completed they 
were the finest illustration in the country of modern 
landscape gardening in their time; "bearing witness," 
says Mr. Henry W. Sargent, "to a refined and elegant 
taste in rural improvement. Its fine level park a mile 
in length, Avas enriched with groups of English limes, 
elms and oaks, and masses of native wood, watered by 
a fine stream, and stocked with deer, were the leading 
features of the place at that time. The oldest of these 
trees were set out early in this century, and are still in 



BOSTON AIs^D VICINITY. 59 

a healthful condition." "The peculiar thing," saj^s 
Col. Theodore Lyman, his grandson, "is that my 
grandfather, son of a poor country clergyman in Old 
York, and compelled to work hard from boyhood, 
should have had the tastes of a refined man of leisure 
in a matter of landscape gardening. Considering the 
immense difficulty of doing such a thing in those days, 
there is nobody near Boston now who is doing as much 
as he did." ^ 

Charlestown, in the early part of this century, was 
distinguished for its good gardens and fine fruits. 
Here was a part of the estate of Nathan Tufts, who had 
a fine fruit garden, now occupied by the Rev. Dr. Lam- 
bert, Rector of St. John's Church. Another fine resi- 
dence was that of Eben Breed, now the site of Mount 
Vernon street, with garden, greenhouse and a small 
orchard. Among the finest places on the peninsula 
about the year 1800, was that of the Hon. Samuel Dexter, 
which afterwards passed to Matthew Bridge, and H. 
Davidson, and is now owned by Rhodes Lockwood, who 
occupies a part of it. It had a fine garden of fruit and 
ornamental trees, grape vines, and a greenhouse. On 
this estate are now the handsome grounds of the Hon. 
T. T. Sawyer and the Hon. Edward Lawrence. The 
father of the Hon. George Washington Warren had a 
large garden of fruit trees and plants. John Hurd, 
and William Hurd had good gardens. Mr. James 
Hunnewell had a fine estate, now occupied by his son, 
our esteemed citizen, James F. Hunnewell. This estate 
still retains its former size, with many of the original 
trees and plants. Mr. James Hunnewell was an enter- 
prising and intelligent merchant, and visited the Sand- 
wich Islands three times during his life, spending several 

1 Letters of George W. Lyman and Col. Theodore Lyman. 



60 THE HORTICULTURE OF 

years there, and established in 1826 the mercantile 
house which still exists, and though passing through 
several parties since, it now has a good standing, and 
is, we believe, one of, if not the oldest American houses 
existing there.^ 

Among other gardens was that of Hon. Charles 
Thompson, whose father was an experienced cultivator 
of fruits. It is still among the largest and best in the 
town. The Navy Yard has a large garden for fruits 
and flowers. The grounds of the Ursuline Convent on 
Mount Benedict were once extensive in their orchards and 
shade trees. In Charlestown, also, was the " Vineyard" 
under the care of David Haggerston, one of the pioneers 
of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, and after- 
wards the gardener of John P. Cushing, at Water town. 
This garden was an experimental one, and devoted almost 
exclusively to the testing of foreign varieties of the grape 
in open ground, and other small fruits, and here was first 
introduced the famous Keen's Seedling strawberry from 
Europe. Here was a greenhouse containing a fine collec- 
tion of the Camellia, where the writer saw this elegant 
plant in bloom for the first time in his life. Another 
jj-arden devoted to the cultivation of fruits and flowers 
was that of Samuel R Johnson, who, forty years ago, 
was one of the most successful cultivators and exhibitors 
of fruits and flowers. 

There have been many other fine gardens in Charles- 
town, but most of those of which we have spoken have 
been built upon. Outside of the peninsula was the 
estate of Joseph Barrell, on the present site of the 
McLean Asylum, which was one of the most distinguished 
in our region.^ It had large gardens and greenhouses, 
which cost about fifty thousand dollars, and in those 

1 Mr. J. F. Hunnewell's letter. 

2 Drake's Middlesex, p. 177. 



BOSTON AND VICINITY. 61 

days was called a " show place." It was called Pleasant 
Hill, probably the same as Poplar Grove, and was called 
Cobble Hill in the Revolution. Mr. Barrell had a fine 
garden in Summer street, in Boston. He also drained 
and planted a garden at the lower part of Franklin street, 
and owned the famous "Mystic farms." He was a very 
enterprising man, and one of the company which owned 
the ships Columbia and Washington, that first crossed 
the bar of the great river of Oregon, now bearing the 
name of one of these vessels, on our Pacific coast. ^ 

Horticulture had a cordial reception in the early 
days of Medford, even back as far as the building of 
the house of Mathew Craddock. The "Royall house," 
once occupied by Col. Isaac Royall, though not so old, 
stood in the midst of grounds laid out in elegant taste, 
and embellished Avith fruit trees and shrubbery, 
walks bordered with box, and a summer-house sur- 
mounted by a cupola, and a statue of Mercury.^ This 
estate was purchased in 1810 by Jacob Tidd, who 
afterwards removed to West Eoxbury, and exhibited 
at the rooms of the Horticultural Society the Horatio 
or Nice grape, weighing over six pounds to the bunch. 
Mr. Royall died in 1739, leaving the property to his 
son Isaac, and by the name of Royall it is still known. 
There were many fine gardens in Medford in our own 
day ; such were those of Timothy Bigelow, Peter C. 
Brooks, Thatcher Magoun, and others who were 
interested in horticultural pursuits, and had good 
gardens and greenhouses. 

West Cambridge, Arlington, Lexington, Concord, Wil- 
mington, Winchester, Woburn, Reading, Revere, and 
other towns in our vicinity, have been prominent in pro- 
moting the science of horticulture during the present cen- 

1 Old Landmarks, p. 254. 

2 Drake's Middlesex County, Vol. 2, p. 165. 



62 THE HORTICULTURE OF 

tury; and from them we have derived not only fine 
fruits and flowers, but the choicest vegetables which 
are to be seen in any markets of the world. From 
Wilmington came the world-renowned Baldwin apple, 
which constitutes the largest portion of the apples ex- 
ported from our market, filling more than three-fourths 
of the six hundred thousand barrels that are sent 
annually abroad. The history of this apple is as fol- 
lows : * 

WoBURN, Sept. 28, 1880. 
Mr. Woodman: Dear Sir, — Your note of the 2Gth inst. was received, 
asking me to give you the account my grandfather, Samuel Tliompson, Esq., 
gave me of the Baldwin apple. In rei)ly I will say he was a surveyor of 
land, and while he was on duty one fall day in a pasture, in the town of 
Wilmington, near a road called Butters Row Road, he came across a tree with 
fine looking apples thereon. The tree was hollow with decay, and a wood- 
pecker bird found a place for her nest therein. He said he carried home 
some of the fruit and gave his brother Abijah some of it, and they were so 
highly pleased with it that they procured a lot of scions from the tree and set 
them in the trees around their homes, and they soon began to yield fruit; and 
they gave some to Col. Baldwin, their neighbor, and he valued them so 
highly he went into them deeply and spread them around among his friends 
broadcast, and they had no name for them and of course they gave them his 
name. While they were in the Thompsons' hands they were called Pecker 
apples, after thb old bird. The tree stood in Wilmington, near Butters Row 
Road. 

LEONARD THOMPSON, 

92 years, 4 months. 

Of the Baldwin apple, Deacon Thgmas Griggs, of 
Brookline, now in his ninety-fourth year, whites :■ 
"^ Seventy years ago I employed a man by the name of 
Tufts, to graft. He came from Woljurn and brought 
scions called the Pecker apple. He said Mr. Baldwin, 
w^hen surveying for the canal, found a tree on the edge 
of the wood which w^as almost killed by woodpeckers, 



* Letter of Col. Leonard Thompson to Hon. Charles Woodman. [See note 
to Mr. Adams's chapter in Boston Memorial, Vol. IV.] Brooks's Medford, 
p. 19, places the tree in that town near the Woburn line. See also Ellis's 
Count Rumford, pp. 375-77. 



BOSTON AND VICINITY. 63 

but had on it a very few nice red apples. From this 
tree he cut scions and from it sprang the Baldwin 
apple." 

From the farm of the Hon. John Cummings, of 
Woburn, were sent the present year two thousand 
barrels of apples to Liverpool, most of which were 
Baldwins ; large quantities of fruits and vegetables for 
the market were also raised there, among which may 
be named seventy-five thousand beautiful heads of the 
cauliflower, produced in one year. 

From Concord comes some of the finest roses, straw- 
berries, grapes, and vegetables, which grace our exhi- 
bitions ; but, if it had produced nothing else but the 
Concord grape, its name, and that of Mr. Ephraim W. 
Bull, its originator, would have been remembered with 
gratitude. Her soil, once fertilized by the blood of her 
sons, yields rich rewards for protecting and making 
it more and more worthy of protection, and her name 
will ever be memorable in history as the spot where 
the British soldiery were repulsed and driven back, on 
the nineteenth of April, 1775. 

One of the most conspicuous and extensive places 
as regards horticultural improvement and landscape 
gardening, and interesting also for its historic associa- 
tions, is that of the Hon. Francis B. Hiyes, at Lex- 
ington, president of the Massachusetts Horticultural 
Society. It is only nineteen years since he j3urchased 
the estate of about thirteen acres on which his house 
now stands. But the estate now embraces in one com- 
pact body, near the centre of the town, and yet retired, 
between four and five hundred acres of hill and dale, 
forest, beautiful landscape pasture and arable fields 
seldom surpassed in New England. A portion of this 
estate belonged to the Rev. John Hancock, who was 
the grandfather of the patriot of the same name. An 



64 THE nORTICULTURE OF 

ancient house built by the son of the above-named cler- 
gyman for his father, and afterwards occupied by Rev. 
Mr. Clark, on Hancock street, still stands nearly oppo- 
site to Mr. Hayes's place. Here Samuel Adams and 
John Hancock were visiting on the morning of the 
Battle of Lexington, April 19th, 1775, and at the same 
time Miss Dorothy Quincy, afterwards the wife of Gov. 
Hancock, was a guest. Adams and Hancock, hearing 
of the approach of the British troops, fled over the hills 
to Burlington, and it was on one of these hills, 
as tradition has it, that Samuel Adams exclaimed, — 
"What a glorious morning is this!" The highest 
eminence on Mr. Hayes's estate has been known 
for a century as Granny Hill, being one of the 
loftiest, if not the highest, in Middlesex county, 
from which the Mount Wachuset in Princeton, and 
Mount Monadnock in New Hampsliire, are clearly 
visible. The scenery is not only wild and beautiful 
but grand, being diversified by ravines, precipices, and 
fertile valleys below. On the top of this hill is a pond 
of about two acres, made by Mr. Hayes, and supplied 
by living streams, from which water is carried all over 
the estate. The aim of Mr. Hayes has been to follow 
nature, making no attempt to produce striking effects 
by changing the natural formation of the ground, but 
only to develop its natural beauties. The extensive 
avenues through the forests are made with special 
reference to preserving the native woods and fields, 
and planting the borders with shrubs suited to the 
various locations, so as to secure harmony, both in the 
cultivated and the wilder growth. 

Within a few years Mr. Hayes has made most rapid 
progress in horticultural improvement collecting -exten- 
sive importations from Europe, and purchasing at home 
a vast quantity of ornamental trees and plants. His 



BOSTOX AXD YICINITT. 65 

collection of rhododendrons and azaleas is quite large, 
and in the season of bloom they are displayed under a 
tent fifty feet square, constructed for this purpose. 
Here is a magnificent new conservatory with iron curve- 
linear roof, sixty-five feet long, forty-two feet broad, 
and twenty-seven feet high in the centre. This contains 
many of the largest and most elegant plants in our 
vicinity, especially of Camellias, Mr. Hayes having 
secured half of the collection of the writer, some of which 
are more than fifty years old. Mr. Hayes has a grapery, 
a rosary, and large wnnter pits for the preservation of 
half hardj^ plants. His exhibitions at the Horticultural 
rooms of plants and cut flowers have carried off a 
large number of first class prizes as testimonials of his 
zeal and enterprise. Nor should we omit to state that 
this estate has been brought to its present extent by 
the purchase of lots of which Mr. Hayes has forty-nine 
deeds. On it he keeps eighty head of cattle and ten 
horses, and cuts a hundred and twenty-five to a hundred 
and fifty tons of hay annually, besides raising large 
crops of other agricultural products. 

Here, in Lexington, were the farms and orchards of 
Major Elias Phinney and Gen. Samuel Chandler, both 
distinguished in the early part of this century for the 
culture of fine fruits, especially of the apple. 

Salem should be especially remembered in our record 
for her interest in horticulture. Here Gov. John 
Endicott planted a nursery, the first of which we 
have any account in New England, a pear tree of 
which still lives and bears fruit. His farm was known 
as Orchard as early as 1643, and this tree stood near 
his mansion. Tlie Governor seems to have been 
extensively engaged in the propagation of fruit trees, 
for in 1644 he wrote to Gov. Winthrop, to whom 
he was in the habit of sending trees: "I humblie and 



66 THE HORTICULTUEE OF 

heartilie thanck you for your last lettre of newes 
&c, for the trees you sent mee." And in 1645 he wrote 
to John Winthrop, Jr., at "Tenne Hills," "what trees 
you want at any tyme send to mee for them, I will 
supply you as longe as I have a tree." Horticulture 
seems to have been much esteemed by the wealthy 
people of Salem, and before the commencement of the 
present century her merchant vessels brought home 
trees, plants, and seeds from foreign lands. Mr. Ezekiel 
Hersey Derby had, early in the present century, an 
extensive garden, greenhouses, orchards, and belts of 
forest trees — a most eleii-ant and deliorhtful home. 
He was one of the founders of the Massachusetts 
Society for Promoting Agriculture.^ 

The first record we have of the introduction of the 
tomato is, that it was brought here in 1802 by Michele 
Felice Corne, an Italian painter.^ 

The most important public benefit conferred on 
the Pomology of New England, if not of our whole 
country, was the establishment of the Pomological Gar- 
den in Salem, by Robert Manning, in 1823. This was 
for testing fruits, both native and foreign, and ascer- 
taining what were- adapted to our own climate. Mr. 
Manning opened a correspondence with the cebbrated 
Dr. Van Mons, of Belgium, Robert Thompson, the head 
of the fruit department in the garden of the Horti- 
cultural Society of London, and others in Europe and 
our own country. From these various sources he re- 
ceived trees and scions to carry on his work. He was 
one of the founders of the Massachusetts Horticultural 
Society, prosecuting his labors with great enterprise 
and zeal till the time of his death in 1842, when the 



1 Felt's Annals of Salem, Vol. II, pp. 148 and 150. 

2 Felt's Annals of Salem, Vol. II, p. ()31. 



BOSTON AND VICINITY. 67 

collection of fruits, of which he had personal observa- 
tion, amounted to more than eighteen hundred varie- 
ties. He also established a nursery, and dispensed 
trees and scions of such as he could recommend to our 
own and other lands. He was a most careful observer, 
and to him more than to all others in our country in 
his day, are we indebted for the introduction of new 
and choice fruits, for the identification of the different 
varieties, the testing of their qualities, and for their 
correct nomenclature. 

Nor would we omit to record the valuable services 
of the younger Robert Manning, who succeeded his 
father in the good work ; who has continued to identify, 
test, and disseminate the fruits which have, from time 
to time come to notice, and who still occupies the old 
family estate. He was one of the founders of the 
American Pomological Society thirty-two years ago, 
and is its present secretary. He is also secretary 
of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, and the 
editor of its History for the first half century of its 
existence. 

Here, in Salem, were the garden and orchard of 
John Fisk Allen, a most enterprising and successful 
cultivator of fruits and flowers. In 1854 he raised 
from seed the first hybridized American grape, Allen's 
Hybrid, which was produced from crossing the Isabella 
with the foreign species. Here, also, was grown and 
flowered that most magnificent water lily, the Victoria 
rer/ia, some of whose leaves were four fe^t in diameter, 
and would sustain a boy of six years of age. Its gorgeous 
flowers were of corresponding proportions, colored 
illustrations of whicn were published in a large, 
elegant folio volume, and dedicated to some of his 
friends. 

The orchards and garden of Joseph Sebastian Cabot, 



68 THE HORTICULTQEE OF 

sixth president of the Massachusetts Horticultural So- 
ciety, were distinguishe^l for the enterprise and intelli- 
gence of its proprietor in horticulture. Mr. Cabot was 
much interested in the cultivation of the tulip of 
which he had more than six hundred varieties, the 
paeony, and flowering plants. His collection of pears 
was very extensive, and he raised several seedlings, 
one of which bears his name. He was a critical 
observer of the merits of fruits, and made a report in 
1858 to the American Pomological Society, recommend- 
ing the expulsion of more than six hundred varieties of 
fruits which were unworthy of general cultivation, 
and these fruits were rejected from its catalogue. 

Here was the home of Col. Timothy Pickering, first 
president of the Essex Agricultural Society, and first sec- 
retary of the first agricultural society on this continent, 
the Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture. 
Here is the extensive and well-managed farm of 
George B. Loring, president of the New England Agri- 
cultural Society during its whole history, who has well 
earned the title of " agricultural orator," and is 
now rewarded for his labors by the ofhce of Commis- 
sioner of the Department of Agriculture at Washing- 
ton. The orchard on this farm has been famous in 
past time, most of the trees having been imported by 
Col. Pickman, its owner, early in this century, and 
among which were the Pickman pippin, known in its 
early days as the Garden apple. 

Other gardens and orchards of Salem are worthy of 
record, did our space permit. Here were the orchards 
and gardens of the Dodges, Silsbees, of Charles Hoffman, 
Francis Peabody, and other worthy citizens. Among 
these may be named that of Mr. John M. Ives, one of the 
founders of the Horticultural Society, who still lives ; 
the Putnams, who have been prominent as horticultu- 



BOSTON AND VICINITY. 69 

rists for more than fifty 3^ears, and that of John C. Lee, 
a relative and companion of our John L. Gardner, with 
whom in boyhood he early developed a love for botanical 
and horticultural studies, which made him one of the 
most enterprising and successful cultivators of fruits and 
flowers ; from his gardener came many of the finest 
illustrations of horticultuial science. One other garden, 
that of Edward S. Rogers, should be noticed for his suc- 
cess in the hybridization of the grape, being the second 
effort within our knoweledge of attempts to cross the 
native with the foreign species. For the mother 
he took a wild grape of the woods, called the Mam- 
moth, and crossed it with the Black Hamburg and 
White Chasselas. The crosses by the Black Hamburg 
produced the Barry, Essex, Herbert, Merrimac, Wilder, 
and other varieties, whose bunches and berries resem- 
ble the male parent. Those crossed by the White 
Chasselas produced the Lindley, the Massasoit, and 
other reddish grapes. Thus the influence of the for- 
eign species was clearly demonstrated, and the fallacy 
which had been entertained that species would not 
cross was refuted. To Mr. Rogers are the public 
indebted more than to any other man, primarily, for 
the extensive hybridization of the grape, which now, 
after twenty-five years, is producing the numerous 
varieties of improved grapes which are yearly brought 
to notice. 

Lynn and Beverly had fine orchards and gardens 
forty or fifty years since, many of which have been 
perpetuated to this day. Among them were those of 
Andrews and Henry A. Breed, who were among the 
founders of the Horticultural Society ; Gen. Josiah New- 
hall, Richard S. Fay, Otis Johnson, of Lynn, and Josiah 
Lovett, of Beverly, who were very successful cultivators. 

The grounds of Mr. Johnson were remarkable for 



70 THE HORTICULTURE OF 

the neatness with which they were kept, and we well 
remember the remark the writer made when visiting 
his place, "There is a weed," which seemed to trouble 
him. Mr. Johnson was a zealous and enterprising 
horticulturist, frequently bearing off the highest prizes 
ior his fruits. He was very successful in the culture 
of small fruits, especially the strawberry. On a bed of 
less than seven thousand feet of land he produced, of 
Hovey's Seedling, seven hundred quarts of fruit, being 
equal to four thousand five hundred quarts to the acre.^ 
The foreign grapes were here grown with great success, 
a regular diary of his process being published. 

Among the most enterprising horticulturists of 
Lynn, and those interested in the groAvth of fruits, 
were the Breeds. In speaking of its progress, Mr. 
Henry A. Breed, says, " fifty-six years ago, there were 
but four varieties of pears, and very few trees in Lynn, 
and but few flowers, now there are upwards of forty- 
five thousand pear trees, bearing almost every variety 
of fruit, and a flower garden may be seen in almost 
every man's yard. I 'built the first greenhouse, and 
now there are upwards of fifty, and many of them are 
quite large. I helped to set out the first shade trees 
in streets ; now almost every street has them on each 
side. Since that time, I have graded thirty-four streets 
at my own expense." Mr. Breed still lives, at about 
eighty-three years of age. 

Coming nearer on the North Shore, among the 
most remarkable instances of success were the efforts 
of the late Frederic Tudor,~ at Nahant. Mr. Tudor 

1 " Hovey's Magazine," XV., p. 411. 

= HoN. M. P. Wilder: Nahant, Oct. 2d, 18G3. 

Dear Sir, — It is one of the misfortunes of a man any way distinguished 
for anything which claims the admiration of his fellow-men, to be continually 
teased and harrassed by the great mass of ignorant and stupid people, on the 
subject for which he is noted. 



BOSTON AND VICINITY. 71 

was called the "Ice King," being the first to establish 
that trade on an extensive scale in our commerce. Here 
on this rough and rock-bound coast, over whose bold 
promontory the dashing waves and surging spray con- 
tinue still to beat, he commenced a large garden on a 
spot without a tree or shrub upon it ; and by enclosing 
it with high, double-pale fences to break the wind, he 
succeeded in producing many fine fruits. In the year 
1849 he exhibited a basket of Louise Bonne of Jersey 
pears, one of which measured over ten inches in cir- 
cumference, and weighed thirteen and three-fourths 
ounces. The trees and vines of this garden, which 
the writer visited a few years since, were then in a 
healthful and productive condition. Mr. Tudor at- 
tached to the pears of which we have spoken the fol- 
lowing note : " The whole circumference of ten fruits 



Tliis must be my excuse for writing this note, and inviting your attention to 
a small basket of fruit produced at this place. 

What I would principally call your attention to is a fruit, a seedling, resem- 
bling the Seckel, but produced from a tree growing entirely different from the 
Seckel, and having thorns not worked. Also to three pears, which have this 
year been produced from trees varying in age from twenty to sixty years. A 
cluster of Brown Beurres ; of these I have three trees, which bore perfect 
fruit for the first time in thirteen years, although every year they have pro- 
duced fruit ; all the previous years the fruit has been bad. Two fruits of the 
old St. Germain, so rare as almost to be forgotten. Of these I have a few 
dozen, produced on an old free stock tree, which this year, for the first time 
in a long course of years, has produced no good fruit. 

Three fruits of the old St. Michael, or White Doyenne, the product of old 
trees which I brought here thirteen years ago, and which have every year pro- 
duced fruit, but always crooked and spotted. This year there is a near ap- 
proach to good specimens. A few specimens of my other fruit to fill the bas- 
ket, although I am sending coals to Newcastle. 

This has been a year of too redundant production, partly owing to the ab- 
sence of production last year, and partly to the great quantity of rain we have 
had during the summer. 

It has been a year for producing large-sized fruit, but of low flavor. I hope 
the Horticultural Society will appoint a competent person to write something 
on the last season, and the cause of the restoration of the lost fruits, which I 
suppose other gentlemen have experienced besides myself. 

I am, very truly, Frederic Tui>ok. 



72 THE HORTICULTURE OF 

in this basket is eight feet, one and a half inches; 
weight of the same, seven pounds four and three- 
fourths ounces ; the tree, a dwarf, bore ninety-five 
fruits." 

At Swampscott are the beautiful and extensive grounds 
of the Hon. E. R. Mudge,^ and many other estates cele- 
brated for their elegance and ornamental culture, and 
we are glad to know that Mr. Mudge and other wealthy 
gentlemen are constantly adding to the improvement 
and adornment of their summer residences on the sea-side. 

Going a little further inland to the west we find 
Dedham, in former days noted for many fine resi- 
dences, among which were those of Fisher Ames, the 
distinguished orator, statesman, and moralist of his 
day, and Edward Dowse, one of the first merchants 
who opened the trade between the United States and 
China. These gentlemen were much interested in hor- 
ticulture, and planted some of the beautiful elms and 
other trees which adorn her streets. They had orchards, 
and gardens, and ice houses, which were considered as 
rare luxuries in those days. 

In 1793, Mr. Ames writes to Thomas Dwight: "I 
have just begun to display my taste as a gardener;" in 
1794, "I have been to see Mr. Gore's place; I do not 
expect to build a smarter;" in 1795, "the time of my 
men is so taken up by the masons, my garden is full of 
weeds;" and again, "I am trying to raise new breeds 
of potatoes from seed." 1799, to Gov. Gore: ''Do I 
bore you on the subject of husbandry ? Paine says, 
Gen. Heath gets three thousand dollars a year by the 
vegetables, &c., from his farm. 1 solicit the honor of 
being appointed to the post of privy counsellor, or sec- 
retary of your cabbage and squash department." And 
again to Gore, same year : " Cider is dear. It is better 
to look for our drink to our trees, than to our ploughs." 

3 Since writing the above, Mr. Mudge has deceased. 



BOSTON AND VICINITY. 73 

In 1802 he writes : " I have sought pleasure among 
my trees." 

The estate of Mr. Dowse, by the wall of his wddow^, 
became the property of her nepheAV, Josiah Quincy, 
who gave it to his youngest son, the late Edmund 
Quincy, who bequeathed it to his second son. Dr. 
Henry P. Quincy, and his daughter Mary, who now 
reside there. 

The example of Fisher Ames has been followed 
by others who have been engaged in the promotion 
of horticulture. Amongj these mav be named Edward 
M. Richards, Ebenezer Wight and Edward S. Rand, Jr., 
all of whom held the office of recording secretary of 
the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. Dr. Wight 
was one of the most eminent cultivators of the apple ; 
proving under his own observation, the numerous varie- 
ties as they came to notice, and distributing scions of 
the same to all applicants. Edward S. Rand, Senior, 
promoted the advancement of horticulture by the 
adornment of his beautiful estate ; and his excellent 
collection of greenhouse and orchid plants, of which we 
have spoken before. His son Edward, whose grounds ^nd 
houses for the culture of fruits and flowers,, his collec- 
tion of orchids, and his contributions to our exhibitions, 
were of a notable character. The efforts of Col. 
Eliphalet Stone, for more than thirt}'- years, in 
promoting the culture of fruits, are still continued, 
dispensing now, as ever, the results of his careful 
experience for the benefit of the public. Dedham was 
the home of the Norfolk Agricultural Society, whose 
presidency, for the first twenty years, was vested in the 
writer, and which greatly promoted by its exhibi- 
tions the horticulture of our vicinity. 

Turning to the South Shore for a hasty glance, we 
find Braintree, including then what is now Quincy, Avas, 



74 THE HORTICULTUKE OF 

from the first settlement of Boston, turned to use by 
many of its citizens for farm and pasture-lands. In 
due time, some of its wealthier owners, and more 
enterprising occupants, introduced orchards and gar- 
dens. Among these, besides the Adamses, Hancocks, 
and William Coddington, was the first comer of the 
distinguished Quincy family, Edmund Quincy. His 
estate originally consisted of a thousand acres. He 
died in 1G36, at the age of 33, just after he had built a 
house on what is now Mt. Wollaston. His son, of the 
same name, who died in 1697, inherited the estate, and 
planted an orchard, of which some apple trees still 
remain. Judge Edmund Quincy, its next owner, a fine 
lime tree of whose planting has come down to our 
time, dying in London, the property came to his son, 
Col. Josiah Quincy, who, about the year 1770, had 
upon it gardens and orchards, with a rich collection of 
French pears. The son of the colonel, the eminent 
patriot, known as Josiah Quincy, Jr., dying in early 
manhood, left an only son, the late honored Josiah 
Quincy, Mayor of Boston, and President of Harvard 
University, to whom his grandfather, dying in 1784, 
bequeathed the estate. The president, who lived to a 
venerable age, devoted intervals during his public life, 
and his retirement from it, to the care, adornment and 
enrichment of the 350 acres which came to his posses- 
sion. He was fond of natural beauty, and of agricul- 
tural improvements, and laid out his grounds with 
much taste. He planted in 1790 an avenue a third of 
a mile in length, of six rows of elms, and two of ash 
trees, still thriving, besides more than a mile and a 
half of hedge. ^ When President Quincy was in con- 
gress, in 1809, he obtained from an English gardener, 

1 Miss Eliza S. Quincy's letter. 



BOSTON AND VICINITY. 75 

Mayn, established at Georgetown, D. C, plants of the 
American hedge-thom {Buckthorn), which he set double 
in his avenue for a third of a mile. After flourishing 
many years this hedge was eradicated in 1850. Mr. 
Quincy also obtained from Mayn the Burgundy, York 
and Lancaster roses, the Bignonia Eadicans, then rare 
in this vicinity, and other plants. He found his attempts 
to introduce here the principles of English agriculture 
very troublesome and costly. He continued his in- 
terest in fruit, and when past his fourscore years, 
called on the writer to purchase trees of the Winter 
Nelis pear. On being told that it was a slender and 
slow grower, he replied, " That is of little consequence 
to such young fellows as myself." He had a fine herd 
on his farm, and wrote one of the best treatises on the 
"Soiling of Cattle," which was published at the request 
of the Massachusetts Society for Promoting Agriculture. 
In 1849 and 1852, it was revised by Mr. Quincy, and 
was republished in the Transactions of the Norfolk 
Agricultural Society, of wdiicli he was a member, and 
reprinted again in 1860, in Flint's State Agricultural 
Report. Mr, Quincy was fond of every improvement, 
and had one of the first mowing machines introduced 
into New England. He passed the last summer of 
his life on his farm, where he died, July 1, 1864, in 
his 93d year, in the house and apartment of his grand- 
father. Col. Josiah Quincy, leaving to his daughter. 
Miss Eliza S. Quincy, and two of her sisters, life estates 
in his house and grounds around it, where they now 
reside. To his eldest son, the present Hon. Josiah 
Quincy, ex-president of the Massachusetts senate, and 
ex-mayor of Boston, he bequeathed his farm wdth a 
house erected in 1850, who also carried it on for a few 
years, and where, in 1881, he resides in a green old 
ao;e, with his children and grandchildren aroimd Inm. 



76 THE HORTICULTURE OF 

In Braintree, was tlie residence of Benjamin V. 
French, a vice-president of the Massachusetts Horti- 
cultural Society, eminent for his devotion to horticul- 
ture and agricultural pursuits. His collection of fruits 
embraced most of the varieties which gave promise of 
being good, especially of the apple, of which he had one 
of the most extensive collections in New England, and 
for the encouragement and culture of this fruit he left a 
bequest which amounted, in time, to the sum of about 
twenty-five hundred dollars, the annual income of which 
was to be appropriated for this purpose. This fund was 
established originally by the members of the Massachu- 
setts Agricultural Club, and other friends, and was to 
revert to the Massachusetts Horticultural Society after 
the decease of Mr. French and his wife ; which have both 
already taken place. Mr. French was much interested 
in the improvement of rural cemeteries, especially of 
Mount Auburn, which from the first, he was one of its 
earliest friends and promoters. 

Hino-liam was much interested in the cultivation of 

o 

the soil and the improvement of fruits, a hundred 
years ago. Among her farmers was Benjamin Lincoln, 
the father of Gen. Benjamin Lincoln, himself a farmer, 
who under the favor of Washington had the honor of 
receiving the surrender of the British army at York- 
town a hundred years ago, — an event which has just 
been celebrated with great display and manifesta- 
tions of public rejoicing. Early in this century the 
Herseys and Burrs had nurseries, and did much for 
horticulture ; but to no one of her sons is she so 
much indebted for progress in terraculture as to the 
late Albert Fearing, president and founder of its 
Airricultural Society, and donor of the Ao-ricultural 
Hall and the Free Library Hall. Much attention has 
been given to planting of shade trees on the streets, 



BOSTON AN^D VICINITY. 77 

and almost every house has its garden of fruits and 
flowers. Its beautiful cemetery, for which Dr. R. I. P. 
Fiske did so much in ornamental culture, is still further 
improved by Mr. Todd. Here rest the remains of John 
Albion Andrew, the "war Governor" and friend of 
human freedom. Nor would we forget that Hino-ham 
is still the home of the venerable Solomon Lincoln, 
the historian, and of our beloved and accomplished 
chief magistrate. Gov. John Davis Long. 

A history of our horticulture would be considered as 
deficient without some notice of the literature which 
has been connected with it, and as agriculture is the 
mother of horticulture it is natural that its publications 
should precede it. The first work of the kind published 
in our State was the New Eno-land Farmer or Geor^-ical 
Dictionary, by Dr. Samuel Deane, in 1790. Then 
came the Massachusetts Agricultural Repository, 1793; 
the American Gardener, by Thomas Green Fessenden, 
in 1822 ; a Treatise on the Cultivation of Flowers, by 
Roland Greene, in 1828 ; and the Book of Fruits, 
by Robert Manning, in 1838. Subsequent to these, 
several other works on horticulture and agriculture, as 
well as magazines and the reports of societies of other 
States and from foreign lands were accessible to those 
who sought for them. Among these may be named 
the Transactions of the Philadelphia and Massachu- 
setts Societies for Promoting Agriculture ; Thacher's 
American Orchardist, of 1821 ; The New England 
Farmer, by Thomas Green Fessenden, in 1822; 
The New American Orchardist, by William Kenrick ; 
The Massachusetts Ploughman ; The Boston Cultiva- 
tor. But it was not until the establishment of the 
American Gardener's Magazine, P. B. Hovey and 
Charles M. Hovey, editors, in 1835, that a regular 
publication on Horticulture was published in New Eng- 



78 THE HOETICULTUKE OF 

land. Of this there were thirtj-four vohimes issued. 
Mr. C. M. Hovey pubhshed his Fruits of America 
in two elegant volumes. At the same time came the 
Horticultural Register, by Joseph Breck, and his popular 
Book on Flowers, and Tilton's Journal of Horticulture, 
Robert Manning, editor. To these may be added a 
Treatise on the Culture of the Grape, by John Fisk 
Allen ; the American Fruit Book, by Samuel W. Cole ; 
the Culture of the Grape, by William C. Strong, and the 
annual reports and publications- of the Massachusetts 
Horticultural Society, with its extensive and magnifi- 
cent library, which is acknowledged by all to be one 
of the best horticultural libraries in the world. And 
in this connection we should also record the fact 
that Horticultural Hall has no equal in elegance and 
convenience within our knowledge ; and to crown all, 
we have the History of the Massachusetts Horticul- 
tural Society for its first half century, embodying 
much of the history and progress to which we have 
alluded. 

Nor can we close this chapter without recognizing 
with gratitude the efforts of the men who laid the 
foundations of the Massachusetts Societj^ for Promotr 
ing Agriculture, of the American Pomological Society, 
and particularly of the Massachusetts Horticultural 
Society, and especially the labors of John B. Russell, 
the only survivor of those mentioned in the act of 
incorporation, who also established the first general 
seed store in Boston more than fifty years ago, and 
has devoted a long life to the promotion of horticul-. 
tural science. 

Nor would we refrain from noticing the influence 
which was, primarily, here created by the efl'orts of 
our first settlers in promoting the higher branches of 
terraculture, and w^hich has now been extended 



BOSTON AND VICINITY. 79 

wherever the foot of civilization has been planted on 
our continent. 

Some reference should also be made to the amazing 
progress, within the age of some who still survive, of 
agriculture, of which horticulture and rural art are 
only parts. Nor would it be generous or truthful 
did we fail to record the fact that much of this on- 
ward march may be primarily traced to Boston and 
its vicinity. And this is not the result of chance. It 
is the natural result arisino- from the teachino;s of such 
pioneers as I have alluded to, in the founding of insti- 
tutions like the Massachusetts Society for Promoting 
Agriculture, the Horticultural Society, the American 
Pomological Society, and other kindred associations. 
How astonishing the progress in our own day ! It is 
not a hundred years since the first Agricultural society 
was formed on this continent. It is little more than 
fifty years since the first Horticultural society was 
established in our land. Now these societies are scat- 
tered from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the Dominion 
to the Gulf of Mexico, numbering nearly two thousand 
kindred institutions, all actively engaged in promoting 
the cultivation of the soil, and in the enrichment of its 
products. 

Fifty years ago the products of our soil were scarcely 
thought worthy of a place in the statistics of our coun- 
try. Now our exports of these amount to nearly six 
hundred millions of dollars annually, and our western 
granaries are treasure houses upon which the world may 
draw to supply deficiencies elsewhere. Then the supply 
of fruits in our market, excepting apples, was limited 
to a few varieties and to a few weeks of use. Now our 
markets abound with fruits for all seasons of the year. 
Then almost the only strawberry in our market was the 
wild strawberry of the field, and that limited to a short 



80 THE HORTICULTURE OF 

season. Now we have in variety these delicious fruits, by 
the facihties of transportation, for two or three months, 
receiving from the South in a single day five thousand 
bushels, and from the single city of Norfolk, in Virginia, 
sixteen thousand bushels, and from our own town of 
Dighton ten thousand bushels in a year. Then not 
a single hybridized fruit of the strawberry had been 
produced, so far as we know, in our land ; now so great 
has been the increase in this period that ray register 
contains the names of nearly four hundred kinds of 
strawberries that have been under cultivation in my 
day. Then there were no American grapes cultivated 
in our gardens except here and there a vine of the Ca- 
tawba and Isabella ; now there are more than two hun- 
dred varieties of American grapes in cultivation, and 
grapes may be had from our shops during more than 
half of the year ; and so extensive are our vineyards 
that, in addition to the production of the grape for 
the table, California alone produces ten millions of 
gallons of wine, of which large quantities have been 
exported to Europe, South America and Mexico, some 
of which is mulled over and returned for consumption. 

Then the cultivation of the pear was limited to a few 
varieties, since which the gardens of Manning, Hovey, 
the writer and others have embraced more than eio-ht 
hundred varieties of this noble fruit. Then no exports 
of fruit of any note had been made. Now, Boston 
alone has shipped over six hundred thousand barrels of 
apples in a year, and the export of fruit from this 
country has amounted to nearly three millions of dol- 
lars in a year. 

Did space permit, we should allude to the wonderful 
exhibitions of the Massachusetts Horticultural, the 
American Pomological, and other societies. Nor can 
we omit to mention the grand improvement in orna- 



BOSTON AND VICINITY. 81 

mental culture which has taken place in our own vicinity 
during this period. Then we had no such splendid 
villas and grounds as Messrs. Hunnewell's, Pajson's, 
Sargent's, Gray's, Hayes's and others, which are such 
an honor to our Commonwealth and country. 

We should also record the fact, in connection with 
the history of horticulture, that although we live in 
a comparatively cold and uncongenial clime, and labor 
under great disadvantages, yet the enterprise, energy, 
and perseverance of our cultivators, has more than coun- 
terbalanced all obstacles, and compels our reluctant soils 
to yield rich rewards for our toil. Horticulture as an 
art is carried to as high a state of perfection here as in 
any other part of our country, and we delight to repeat 
this sentiment, so happily expressed by our poet Holmes : 

"So on our rude and wintrj' soil 

We feed the kindling flame of art, 

And steal the tropics' blushing spoil 

To bloom on Nature's icy heart." 

Another strong evidence of improved taste is the 
establishment and adornment of our Cemeteries. 
Mount Auburn at Cambridge, Forest Hills at Roxbury, 
and Woodlawn at Chelsea, are happy illustrations of 
refined taste and culture. The neglected and gloomy 
resting-places of the dead, which once cast horror and 
terror on the minds of children, and even those of 
older years, are fast giving way to the shady retreats 
and sylvan scenes of the garden and forest. Where 
formerly only decaying grass, tangled weeds, and moss- 
covered tablets were generally to be seen, may now be 
witnessed beautiful sites, natural scenery, and embel- 
lished lots, that awaken sensations which no language 
can describe, — where the meandering path leads 
to the spot in which rest the remains of the loved 
and lost, — where the rustling pine mournfully sighs 



82 THE HORTICULTURE OF 

in the passing breeze, the willow weeps in respon- 
sive grief, and where the evergreen, breathing in 
perennial life, is a fit emblem of those celestial fields 
where the leaf shall never wither, and the flower 
never fade. 

The general use of flowers, from the cradle to the 
grave, affords striking proofs of a high state of civili- 
zation and refinement. Within our own recollection, 
the use of flowers at funerals or in the sanctuary was 
deemed improper with the sanctity of divine worship. 

These have been too often considered as the mere 
superfluities of life, but the more we are brought into 
communion with them, the more will our souls be in- 
spired with gratitude to Him who clothes the fields 
with floral gems scarcely less brilliant than the glitter- 
ing host above. Nor can we too highly jappreciate 
that wisdom and benevolence which surrounds us with 
these beautiful manifestations of perfection and glory, 

" Mingled and made by love to one great end." 

But horticulture includes more than the finest fruits 
or flowers, or the neatest and most skilful cultivation. 

From the time of the heathen mythologists, and the 
wise King Solomon when ''he made orchards and gar- 
dens, and planted all kinds of fruits," the praises of the 
garden have been perpetuated through all ages. 
From scenes in the garden, from Eden to Geth- 
semane, have been drawn the most exalted and 
sublime conceptions, the most sacred and divine 
communings that have ever moved the heart of 
man — the garden where man may commune with its 
Maker and admire the beauty and glory of His works. 
" The garden," says Lord Bacon, " is the purest of 
human pleasures, and the greatest refreshment to the 
spirit of man, without which buildings and palaces are 



BOSTON AND VICINITY. 83 

but gross handiworks." "No one," said Daniel Web- 
ster, "is too polished to see its beautj^, nothing too 
refined to be capable of its enjoyment. It is a con- 
stant field where taste and refinement may find oppor- 
tunity for gratification." Said Mr. Winthrop : " Horti- 
culture is in its most comprehensive sense, one of the 
fine arts of common life. It distributes its productions 
with equal hand to the rich and the poor. It decorates 
the dwelling of the humblest laborer with undoubted 
originals by the oldest masters, and places within his 
daily view fruit pieces such as Van Huj^sum never 
painted, and landscapes such as Poussin could only 
copy." 

So thought Cyrus when he boasted of having planted 
his trees with his own hands ; so Maximillian, " If you 
could see the fruits I cultivate with my own hand, 3^ou 
would not talk to me of empire." And so thought our 
own Pickering, Lowell, Colman, Dearborn, Downing, 
and others of our own time, who have retired from the 
scenes of city life that they might enjoy the rich gifts 
which bounteous nature bestows on the culture of the 
soil. 

Thus we have, as briefly as possible, traced the his- 
tory and progress of the horticulture of Boston and 
its vicinity for the last two hundred and fifty years, 
from the time when William Blaxton planted his 
orchard on our CapitoHne Hill, — from the time when 
Endicott, Winthrop, and the colonists of Massachusetts 
Bay brought with them the seeds and stones from 
which, primarily, arose the taste for fine fruits, beauti- 
ful flowers, and the ornamental culture which has made 
our region so distinguished in the annals of terracul- 
ture. Slowly, but positively, has this taste been 
gradually improving, until Boston and its vicinity 
have become beautiful and eminent for horticultural 



84 THE HORTICULTURE OF 

progress, a progress which has been for the Last fifty 
years wonderful. Fruits which were then, at the be- 
ginning of the present century considered as good, 
have no place in our gardens or in our catalogues 
now. Well do we remember the time when there 
was no other strawberry or native grape except the 
wild varieties, not a Black Tartarian nor Downer 
cherry, not a Bartlett, Duchesse d'Angouleme, or 
Beurre d'Anjou pear, not a forced fruit or flower 
from the hot-house for sale in our market, and not 
a shop for the sale of flowers in our city. And 
although we may regret the loss of the numerous fine 
gardens which once graced our city, sparkling like gems 
on the breast of beauty, we are more than compen- 
sated for the loss by the wide-spread interest which 
now pervades our land, and furnishes us daily with 
fruits and flowers fit to grace the table of a king. 

Our fine gardens have been supplanted by temples 
of commerce, manufactures, science, literature, and 
religion. But however great the fame of old Boston 
may be for her benevolent institutions, however re- 
nowned she may become for other attainments, we 
believe she will be gratefully remembered for her lead 
in the science of the soil, and that, through all coming 
time, the history of Boston horticulture will be fragrant 
with the memories of the past, and we fondly hope 
that — 

" The scent of the roses will hang round it still." 

In the beauty and often gorgeous array of flowers, 
we have presented to us the striking and sublimely 
impressive fact that there is more of richness and 
variety in these growths, with no utilitarian purpose 
except to minister to delight, than in all the so-called 
products of Nature. It is as if its Great Author and 



BOSTON AND VICINITY. 85 

Designer proclaimed to us, that after the use of all the 
original elements, for every need of man and beast, — 
for sustenance, clothing and shelter, — there was a rich 
surplus to be turned to the gentle and loving service 
of refining tastes and innocent joys. 



H34 85 








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